Down On The Farm...

Grandma's and Grandpa's farm, circa 1988
i never knew my grandparents on my father's side, they passed away the same year as my parents were married, my grandparents on my mom's side moved to Florida before i was born, so i met them maybe twice before they were gone. With this background, when i met my husband to be's grandparents, they immediately became MY grandparents - they were just those kind of people. They were farmers, worked very hard all their lives in a small town outside of my city, and they really resembled (but better looking!) Grant Wood's painting, "American Gothic" (their names were Neva and Delbert - those are definitely Old American country names)! i had never known anyone like them before, the way they were so down to earth and the way they loved the outdoors... - they were part of the reason i became so interested in growing things. There are few people who have had that much of an influence on me; even the drive out to the country to their farm, past the cornfields and the cows, was fascinating to me! Grandpa was always fascinated in turn that a "city girl" like me "liked getting her hands dirty" in the soil! They both lived to be 95 years old, and, while Grandpa was bedridden for the last two years of his life, their minds stayed sharp till they day they died! I miss them terribly, but wherever they are, i hope they're on a pristine little farm in the middle of rolling green fields (without the work....!)