Who Knows When These Seeds Were Planted?

The story goes that my grandfather met my grandmother when he went to her father and asked if he could make a garden in a vacant city lot which my grandmother's daddy owned.

My grandfather was the son of the son of the son of farmers from Pennsylvania and had grown up on a farm owned by that family since before the war which tore the serrated edge of the tag of England from the new country's ruling power.

Ahem. I am at least half Yankee stock. Can you believe that? Ah-lah.

And Granddaddy, being the eldest of his generation, was due to inherit the farm and spend his life on it but he didn't wish to do that and went to New York state to learn the art of cabinetry and while he was in school there, he cut off the fingers of his left hand in a saw. Done. Cabinetry making and what all else, I can't imagine.

BUT, the company he worked for sent him to another school to learn to buy wood and that is what my grandfather did for his entire working life. He loved wood and my brother who lives in Washington State inherited that love and has spent most of his life with trees, planting and cutting them.
Anyway, Granddaddy went to Grandmama's father and asked to make a garden out of this lot and the old man, Mr. Slocum, said yes, and he was impressed with my grandfather's work ethic (or at least, this is how the story goes) and before long, it appeared that my grandfather was impressed with Mr. Slocum's youngest child (there were twelve children and Granny was the baby) and well, next thing you know a diamond was being given and I wear this diamond on my left hand in a ring nestled between two other diamonds given to me by Mr. Moon. Granny's diamond has a visible flaw in it- a dark piece of coal which never transmogrified into diamond, I suppose, and to me, it has always resembled a seed of some sort.
Appropriate.
I, too, love trees although I have never cut more than a branch or a young seedling tree which I did not want to have growing where it sprouted, unlike my brother who cut and milled wood for many years. He knows more about trees and wood than anyone I personally know and when Mr. Moon and I visited him a few years ago, he took us to a forest to see trees like this one:

Blood will tell, babies. Blood will tell.

And although I have my beautiful oaks, it is the dirt which calls to me most strongly. I imagine that, too, comes from my grandfather because as far as I know, my father's side of the family never planted anything more than a rose bush or a rumor. Really, I have no idea and I might be amazed if I searched through the family tree. As it were.
(White- tell me what you know about this.)

Anyway, I have just planted some winter things in the garden. The arugula and some spinach, some mustard greens and some turnips and some mesclun lettuces which will take us through the winter for salad and greens. I waited until the sun was low in the sky and the heat was not so bad and then, after I did my planting, I went out with my clippers and trimmed up some of the palms and elephant ears and bananas.

Now I feel as if I have done my job for the day. There is no denying the call of the genes of my ancestors to take a bit of land and make it into something fruitful and beautiful. I don't care to raise cows for milk or meat or hogs for their bacon (oh wait- maybe I do) but I do have a need to plant the greens and the lettuces and beans and to see the chickens scratching in the dirt. My mother tells me that Granddaddy always kept chickens on their bit of property on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, and that she hated gathering eggs when he was gone because the hens pecked at her.

My hens peck at me too, but I don't mind. They are, for the most part, quite generous, and hop on and off the nest as handily as can be, to lay their eggs and then just leave them. Occasionally one will grow broody and want to keep her eggs, but it is rare and if they do peck at me, it's more love bite than real threat. I love to pat the hens on the nest and this morning I was able to give Miss Daffodil a very nice little neck and wing massage as she sat and she seemed to enjoy it.

It's interesting to think and wonder about the ways I've been influenced by my grandparents and theirs as well and I should probably start researching them and finding out more about who I am and why I am but I just seem to be too busy taking care of my descendant these days and I know I am instilling some of those genes within him. He loves to find eggs in the nest and he loves the chickens, as we all know, and eventually, I'll take him out to the garden to learn about they mysteries and wonders there, as well.

An almost half-moon is rising above my little bit of land tonight and as I pulled a few invasive potato vines and gave them to the goats next door and dumped the wheelbarrow full of trimmed-off elephant ears and banana leaves, I saw it shining silver above my head and I felt, for the moment, perfectly content. The goats were moaning their approval over the potato vine, my chickens were shut up into their house and the sprinkler was on, watering in my seeds. The oak trees and pecans which I have can take absolutely no credit for their presence or their growing were stretching up into the night sky and I could feel my grandfather in my blood, nodding his own approval over my tending of the small piece of earth I am lucky enough, at this point in my life, to be shepherd over. I thought of the salads we shall eat this winter and of the eggs which will give us their flavor and protein and for a second, at least, I knew I was doing exactly what I should be.

These moments are rare and they rarely involve malls or watching television or reading newspapers. Or sitting in church. For me, anyway.

No, for me they always involve dirt and water, sky and trees, sweat and effort. And I have this diamond on my finger with its tiny seed wrapped in harder-than-anything memory and promise on my finger, my ant-bit, dirt-under-the-nail finger. The diamond which Granddaddy gave Granny so very many years ago and it rests just above the skin which covers the veins his very own blood runs through. And is bracketed on each side by diamonds which my husband gave me, the husband whose blood runs through our grandson who will, someday I hope, want to dig in the dirt to plant seeds and keep chickens and fix engines and maybe even (be still my heart) write.

I hope that because in my experience, those things are real and worth doing. I heard a man once, a long time ago, refer to a certain class of people as the changers of the oil and the tillers of the soil. It struck me then and strikes me now as a perfect description of the sort of person I want to be and would want my descendants to be.
With a bit of the crazy musician/writer/dancer/artist thrown in for damn good measure.

The moon is rising. The crickets are rubbing their legs together and my seeds are in the ground. My fat, sweet hens are sleeping on their roost and my tiny bit of land is trimmed up and waiting for fall to find us.

For tonight at least, there is peace in my soul and Grandfather is not displeased.