Summer Garden

Today I am cooking ladyfinger peas and corn for dinner.  I bought both fresh at a local farm.  I have not cooked fresh peas in a really long time.  I am a country girl at heart who grew up on an ostrich farm.  My grandparents also planted a garden every summer that included: purple hull peas, lady finger peas, okra, squash, eggplant, cucumbers, green bell peppers, Lima beans, corn, butter beans, watermelon, strawberries, and potatoes.  They also had several blueberries bushes.  Needless to say we ate organic before it was trendy.  For us it was just a way of life.  I had a love/hate relationship with my grandparents' garden.  I loved spending time with my grandparents shelling peas and shucking corn but I absolutely hated having to pick peas in hot, humid weather.  Some of my greatest memories is shucking and cutting corn and then feeding the cobs to the cows.  Simple but it was fun.

Thinking of this makes me miss my grandfather tons.  He was the single most important person in my life.  I loved him dearly and wish every day that he was still alive.  He would have just had a fit over Anna.  He was a simple man who worked hard and loved his family.  He was honest, fair and accepting.  He was the only person who ever made me feel like I was important.  I enjoyed spending time with him and listening to him talk.  My grandfather was a father to me since my dad was too busy getting high or just being a jerk.  My grandfather had Alzheimer's and it broke my heart when he died.  I would go visit him in the nursing home and talk to him even when he wasn't able to carry on a conversation.  I always felt like he knew I was there.

People always say that you marry the man who is most like your own father.  I married the man that was most like the person that meant the world to me, my grandfather.  Had he been alive and able, I would have loved for him to have walked me down the aisle at my wedding.  I also wish that he would have been able to meet Dave before his Alzheimer's was advanced.

My grandfather was always the person I could go to for advice.  I remember him always telling me "No matter where you go, don't forget where you came from".  Yep, I'm just a country girl at heart.