Flower Day at the Farmer's Market

Well, this weekend is the biggest day at our local Farmer's Market. i started attending this event, first as one of the Master Gardeners at The Ohio State University Master Gardener booth there (around 1991), then a few years as a customer, now in the third year with my garden art! Our Downtown area has been very depressed for quite a few years (and my job is in that area, so i see it every day), but i'm hoping, like many of us Toledoans are, that Downtown is on the upswing. Regardless, you'd never know there was anything wrong on Flower Day weekend! Many of the area farmers, nurseries, and greenhouses (AND garden artists!:o) ) converge on the Market with food, song, flowers fruits and veggies for two days and it is a wonderful thing! The first events where i tried my leaves were the Farmers Markets, so i have good feelings about them! This also kicks off MY season, as i will be doing quite a few shows between now and September.

Moo

We spent Easter at my Sister in Law's house in the country. Grandma and Grandpa, mentioned below, are her real grandparents, evidently they made an impression on her, too, since she has always loved the country, and that is where she and her husband live now.

A lot of the people where she lives have "farm ponds", i.e., large bodies of water that are actually utilised for their water supply. i have to be careful when i mention "my pond" around there, because they are thinking of a BIG pond, and mine is just a "water garden". This pic is of ONE of her ponds..

They also raise some bovines (i'd rather say that, i always call them "cows" and i know they're boys, so i always get corrected!) , actually for food, but i think it's funny that SIL always gives them names! Oh, well, i probably would, too - when i go out to look at them, it doesn't take me long to find a couple of favorites!

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....!)