One way I made my garden (and this is how I prefer to make a garden) is the following. You go get some hay. Rotted hay is the best. You just put this all over your garden, thick. Like in a 12×12 area, you would need about 4 bales of hay just to start. Spread this on your garden evenly. You don’t have to plow it up first. Just put the hay on in the spring.

When you go to plant your tomatoes, for instance, dig some holes and part the hay and plant the tomatoes. Just dig a hole and put the tomato plant in. You never have to worry about weeding because the hay covers all the ground around your tomato. When the tomatoes begin to get tall, you don’t have to stake them up. Just get clean hay and bunch it up around them.

As you mow the lawn, put all the grass clippings on the garden over the hay to keep the weeds from popping up, as the hay will soon flatten to the ground. You never have to pull a weed if you have plenty of grass and hay around your plants and around all of the space in your garden. By the end of the season, your garden looks like a brown carpet with plants coming up out of the carpet. You should have no weeds at all.

This idea works very well if you can get some hay. Put the rotted hay at the bottom for fertilizer. You don’t have to let the grass die underneath the hay before you plant the garden. You can put the hay down and plant right away. You just dig a hole through the hay and plant the tomatoes. Just dig holes all through the hay and plant. You can do this with pepper plants, too, or any plants. If ya want to plant beans? Just dig a row out of the hay and plant the beans in a row.

Keep the hay away so the plants can get the sun and water it needs, but when the plants start to come up, then just tuck the hay around it so weeds won’t come up. Before you ever lay the hay down to begin with, be sure to water the area really good, until it is soaked in to about a foot into the ground. (This would take about 30 minutes of just letting the water soak into the land.) Because when you put the hay over it, then it will hold the moisture in and you won’t have to water your garden all summer long.

It’s really a good way to garden.

I am up early this morning. I planned on sleeping in, as I waited up for Papa to get home late last night from work. But I guess I am just used to rising early.

I just put some chicken in the crock pot. I plan to make bar-b-qued chicken and then, in the other crock pot, potatoes of some kind. I gotta think about that. I also have my list out on the table to write down a few groceries that I need.

Yesterday, our Mary had to go to the Home school library to renew a book. She got me the Tightwad Gazette 3. I have read Tightwad Gazette 2 to my kids when all were home. We would read to each other a little bit of it every day after devotions and before they started school. It’s a book on things like recycling and how to pinch a penny. I read it with my kids so they would understand when I recycled things or did something else the world would call nuts, like not wasting things and using common sense.

One way I save money on the garbage bill is that I throw all of my vegetable peelings on my garden outside. I always have a lot of potato peelings to put on my garden. We should all do this when we can because our soil is so depleted, and it shouldn’t be, with all the things we have to feed it. It’s good to throw old bread to the birds, too, so that they will come to your house and keep your soil fertilized.

I have herbs that grow all over my yard. Some folks would call them weeds. But many are foods and seasonings and medicines. June is white clover month and I make tea with the clover and it is a good cleanser. I don’t have the purple clover but I am sure this works the same way.

I long for my herbs as I stand here writing. Last summer was sort of a pruning for me, and I didn’t do much with my herbs. But I feel the calling of spring as I stand here, thinking of my catnip and other mints and many other herbs. I am longing for my seven sister roses. They are an old fashioned brier rose, some of the first planted when the pioneers first traveled to the midwest. They are hierlooms. They were here when we first moved to this house almost 30 years ago.

And I have never used poisons on my yard, so I have many old fashioned herbs that grow happily here. Neighbors on both sides of us use so much pesticides. It’s all so unnatural and can get down into your water systems. We, as housewives, need to do common sense things in our yards to protect our soil and, also, to feed it and to encourage the healing herbs to grow.

My two brothers are both back to the land type guys, and Papa is, too. Both brothers have a few acres apiece of good land. When they went walking through my yard with me, they could name every herb. Some I didn’t know, and Scott (age 52) told me the name and history of it and the Latin name for it. One I didn’t know was shepherds purse. Scott pointed it out to me and told me how to recognize it, as the tiny leaves on it look like a shepherd’s purse. You can use the little leaves to season foods.

I used to have rabbits and I fed them comfrey that I had grown. Rabbit fertilizer is the best food for your soil.

Also, I have always had house cats and they have been good workers. If they see a rabbit or some kind of animal in my garden, they chase it out. And they keep my house free of mice, too. One time Kitty brought in a little rabbit to play with, but we popped him on the head and told him “Bad Kitty — you keep your friends outside.” In the afternoon, if Kitty would run after birds, the blue Jays would sure tell on Puss. They would squawk until I came out and got Kitty, spanked him and brought him inside.

I never throw my potato peelings in my garbage. I always take them to my garden. I will spread them around the bottom of my tomato plants. I have a lot of peelings in the summer. Like lately, we had corn and I put all the corn shucks around my pepper plants. This way, it keeps the weeds down and the moisture in.

But, no, I don’t make compost the way you should. I guess I never have gotten around to it. I have a compost pile in the middle of my garden. It is made of 4 poles that stick in the ground with chicken wire around it. In it, I throw old weeds and stuff and some peelings. But you are supposed to stir it and I don’t. But I won’t put any of my weeds out to the trash because eventually they will decompose. We have so many limits on how much garbage we can get rid of, so I never throw anything out that will decompose on its own.

This spring, planting time really caught me this year a day late and a dollar short. Normally, I would have bought some hay to put around all of my tomato plants. And then I stick all kinds of peelings under the hay. It works as a green manure. I do cut down my horseradish leaves and use them as a mulch to lay around my plants. Also, I use the big comfrey leaves as a mulch.

Right about now, some of my herbs are looking spindly. I will go out and cut off the top few inches to dry them for tea. But the bottom part, I will cut off to the ground and I will throw this around my vegetable garden plants. Then the herbs will grow back up again before fall and I will cut them again to dry. Well, it depends on which herb. Some won’t grow back; some will. But, like, my mint in the front yard is about 3 feet high. I will cut that down to about a foot high and it will grow back up.

But I need the mulch. Around here, we always get a drought in about August. So I want to get all my plants well tucked in with mulch before that. We have had alot of rain lately, so when I put all the cut mint and peelings around my plants, it will keep the moisture in the ground and I won’t have to water during August. See, ya want deep root systems for your vegetable plants.

I take, like, watermelon rinds after we have had a watermelon, and I turn the rinds upside down so that the peeling is up, and then I tuck these around my plants. If you don’t have the backside of the rind up, then you just get a bunch of flies in your garden and a big mess. Also, if you have a lawn mower that catches your grass, well, you are the most fortunate of all. All of that nice cut grass can be put in your garden as a mulch. If I see the neighbors haul their grass clippings to the front for garbage pick up day, then I ask if I can have it and I put it on my garden. Because you have to keep this up all summer with the mulch around your plants. But by the end of July, your garden will look like it has a brown carpet on it … no weeds just plants. And, of course, your soil will become so rich and good after years of gardening this way.

We used to raise rabbits. Oh, mercy! Rabbit manure is pure gold to a garden. You can even use it fresh; it won’t burn the plants.Now, cows’ manure, etc … you have to let that age before putting it on your gardens. But I put anything on my garden that will decompose. Even old rugs that I am sick of, I will use them to make a garden path. Eventually, they decompose.

When our kitty was little, we used cat litter for a while. Now he goes outside. But I would put the old cat litter in my compost pile. Well, it’s not a real compost pile, but it serves its purpose for now. But, ya know, after you do that, be sure to pull weeds and put that on the top. Otherwise, you would have flies and all kinds of bugs. But you should see the red raspberry plants that have grown where my compost pile used to be. Well, they are only about 3 years old, and I pruned them down last fall (cut them back to encourage growth.) Well, they are bearing beautiful red raspberries now and the branches (canes) are about 6 feet high. I know it was the cat litter that helped them to grow. Later, we moved the compost pile and now, the dirt under it is really rich and fertile.

I made red raspberry jam yesterday. I may make some more today. Actually, I planted the red raspberries in the first place mainly for the leaves. I dry them for the winter tea. This tea is a good remedy for any female problems.

Another thing I have done in the midsummer is put newspaper around my plants, especailly cabbage plants. I just tuck it around really good so it won’t blow away. I think the newsprint helps to keep the bugs away. And cabbage, if ya dont watch it, will get eaten up with bugs and worms before you catch it. Also, I put the hot red pepper flakes on the cabbage plants to keep the bugs away. I won’t use any bug poisons on my garden or anywhere in my yard.

Also, Kitty eats rabbits if they try to come into my garden. Kitty should earn his keep and he does it proudly.

Back in the old days, in the summer time, well, ya know, it was the Mothers who made the house look pretty, especially in the front yard.

The foundation on the front of our house has looked a bit tattered for the past few years. Papa has to fix it. But I have tiger lillies planted all across the front bottom of the house to hide the foundation. I have many old fashioned flowers in my yard. I especially love the tall holly hocks. I have pink ones that grow all over my side yard, next to the dark purple yarrow. I have yarrow growing in the front, too.

But the old time country mothers always delighted their families in the summertime with flowers.

When the children were little, we would go for a walk after supper and before bedtime. We would admire the neighbors’ vegetable gardens as we would walk by. But we especially noticed and enjoyed the flowers. We always noticed that the poorer folks had the prettiest flowers. It seemed that this was their joy in the summertime … their flowers. And the flowers would look like proud children with smiles on their pretty faces, all standing in a row dressed for a party.

My Mary, when she was … oh … about 5 yrs old, went for a walk with her Aunt Kriss through her flower gardens. “Mary knew the names of all of my flowers. I was so surprised,” Kriss told me later. Mary always loved flowers and still plants flowers every spring.

Usually about this time of the year, early July, I would plant more flowers for the Fall. Zinniahs and marigolds will last well into the fall in Iowa. Sometimes, I would cut the purple irises down to the ground after they had bloomed and then put new dirt over the top, then I would plant the Zinniahs.

The children always got a kick out of those 10

Dear Mothers of the Gardens,

I wanted to write again today about some more things I do with my flowers that grow by the sidewalk that goes up to my front door.

At garage sales, I find old china for harldly nothing. It’s pieces that are chipped but still pretty. Well, I use the small plates to set among my flowers. I may set a little brown clay pot on it with small flowers grwoing in it. I have a big china serving tray that is chipped, and I use this to sit upright against the house in back of the flowers. You could set big pretty plates all along the foundation of your house and have a lot of pretty flowers growing in front of them. Often, over the summer, they will break more and you can still use the pieces for next year. Stuck in the dirt, you cant tell if they are broken or not.

Also, in the spring and summer and well into the fall, I lay colorful rag rugs up our home walk to the front door. It looks down home.

One year, I grew a huge milkweed in my front yard. It was beautiful and folks thought it was an exotic flower. It had a big purple bloom on it. Papa had a fit and made me take it down. Well, it was up for a while, anyway. “Do you want milkweeds growing all over the front yard?” he asked me. Well, heck, I didnt care. I thought it was pretty.

I plant catnip everywhere in my yard, too, among other herbs. My cat loves it. And he is gifted. His dog house is full of last year’s dried herbs. And he is lazy and lolls about all summer in his bed of herbs. He never worries about anything … well, usually not. His name is Chuck. Anyway, he is another story for another time.

But back to flowers. I let huge sunflowers grow up by the house, too, and, yes, in the front yard. Well, the wildlife love it. I can sit in my living room and watch goldfinches and other rare birds come and eat of the sunflower seeds. It is such a treat to me to watch them. Sometimes, by the end of the summer, you can hardly get in my front door. But you should see all the fluttering colorful butterflies that play among my Bachelor Buttons and Zennias. I mean, I could plant all this in the backyard but I would never get to see it. And, especially on a lazy summer afternoon, I love to sit on my sidewalk step on a comfortable rag rug and enjoy the flowers and butterflies.

Of course, the teenagers and their friends get such a kick out of my front yard. It’s OUT OF THE BOX thinking, and this stuff thrills teenagers, ya know? Mary said that her friend Lacy, when she comes over, the kids left in the car want to come in and meet me. Just because of how my front yard looks. This is all a true story, but I am laughing so hard as I write it. It doesn’t even seem true.

But I let flowers and herbs grow where they take a liking. I just feel that if they came up in a certain spot, then they must like it there and will grow well. Some are so spoiled and ornery. I just laugh at them when folks say “Sooo what have you got growin’ here?” But Papa keeps my feet on the ground (unfortunately), and when I am not looking, he will snatch out of the ground some start of a sunflower plant. Especially if he can hardly get through the front door. Our neighbor, Chuck next door — our cat was named after him — could kill me for all the morning glories I encourage to grow on his fence between our houses. Well, I have tried to quit that. My neighbors are always trying t keep me and my wild flower children out of their yard. But they are all good to me.

Love
Connie H

In the springtime, the old fashioned mothers would love going outside and cleaning up their yards and planting flowers. I never understood why the old timey mothers loved flowers so much. Well, I do now. They are gorgeous and they are free.

The children and I used to go for walks in the springtime, just around the neighborhood. We always noticed that the poor families had the most beautiful flowers. The flowers were their luxuries, their riches. Oh, the more well-to-do would buy the potted plants and put them in front of their homes to play a part. But the poorer mothers had to use the 10 cent seeds and they lovingly cared for them and, oh, their creations were so simple and lovely! The stay at home mother is there to guide her young plants and to baby them and make them grow.

In front of my house, I have moonplants. Oh, they are so lovely. They bloom in the evenings after the sun goes down. One year, they tried to come in the front door. I would just gently nudge them to the side as they tried to follow me in. I have Bachelor Buttons that come up every year next to the moon flowers. I have these planted on either sides of my front walk, up by the door. They aren’t up yet, of course, but hopefully today, I can go out and rake away the leaves and make it look pretty for Easter Holiday.

During the winter, I like to make crafts with potpouri that I buy and some that I still have from making my own. I mix it all together. So what I will do today is clean out the leaves on either side of the walkway to the front door, and then I will fill it all with the old potpouri I have in the house. It will look pretty for the Holidays. I may plant some lettuce, too, along the walkway. It’s almost spring here in Iowa. But we have had huge snow storms in April. But the lettuce won’t mind.

I also have hanging dried yarrow in the house that I will take down and put in the dog house as bedding. I will do that with all of the hanging herbs that went through the winter. Our cat sleeps in the dog house in the summer under the plum tree. He loves rolling in old dried herbs.

Also, on either side of the walkway to my front door, I have lambs ears growing. They are the soft white leaves that feel like baby lambs ears. They are just coming up. And I have the purple yarrow. Also chives. They come back each year.

One year at a garage sale, I found loads of those little fish aquarium rocks. They were so pretty, and I used them to put around my flowers. They were all different colors, so tiny and pretty.

Also each year, I buy some of those little bird houses from the Dollar Store, the little ones are only a buck or 2. They look cute, as they have a stick at the bottom, and you can just stick them in the ground among your flowers. Also, I took a little toy rabbit last year and hid it in the flowers. One of those little white rabbit banks? The neighbor children got a kick out of it.

I found an old cowboy boot flower pot and I filled that with flowers and put it up by my front door. It looked like Papa had lost his boot. I mean, you could plant a flower in any old shoe or boot.

Also last year at the dollar store, they had the old galvanized milk buckets. I just love mine. They were 3 bucks I think. But a country mother could fill them with dirt and use them for flower pots.

I love the red geraniums to plant in pots. This way, I can bring them in the house when Autumn comes. But right now, I am just doing the front walk until it warms up and I am sure it wont snow again.

But we, as country mothers, need to yield ourselves to our gardens and be happy and trust in the Lord.

So many of you mothers are so busy, I wanted to tell you a quick way to make a garden.

Well, you need A LOT of hay. Just pick a place for your garden. Don’t plow it up. Just pile hay in an area of maybe 10 by 10 feet. Make it about a foot thick. Do this a few weeks before you need to plant your garden, very well after a frost.

See, the hay laid on that thick will kill all the weeds under it. So when you begin to plant, just part the hay in rows and plant your seeds. Part it good enough so that the sun will get to your rows. Plant your seeds and water them very well. Make sure you water enough that the water goes at least 6 inches down into the ground. Otherwise, you will only be watering the top of the ground and nourishing your weeds.

When the plants begin to come up, just tuck the hay back around the plants so that no weeds will come up. Now, you will have to keep adding hay as you go, because the hay will break down. So just keep adding hay so that no weeds can come up.

Now, to nourish your garden, put old potato peelings and all kinds of garbage under the hay. Hide it under there daily. Like old eggshells and peelings of every kind … anything that will rot … stick it under the hay. Left over spaghetti? Just hide it good under the hay. Now, if you have chickens or goats or whatever, and you have the old hay from their bedding … Wow! That will be wonderful to put on your garden.

Say, for instance, you are planting tomatoes. Instead of staking them up, just keep adding clean hay around them and let them fall into the mounds of hay. Put the old manured hay underneath and the new hay on top. If you get an early frost in the fall, you can just cover the tomato plants at night with more clean hay, and then, when the sun comes up the next morning, scoot the hay away and let the sun shine in.

When I use my wringer washer in the summer, I empty it by hand in buckets and then I carry it to my gardens to water my plants. The old soapy water keeps the ground pliable and it kills bugs from your plants.

Now, if you are interested in this method of gardening, then get some of Ruth Stout’s writings. She had gardens when she was really old, like in her 90’s, using this method. The only time you dig up anything is when you go to plant. Then it’s more and more hay. Anything you don’t want in your yard, just pile hay on it and let it die.

Now, I just could never get ahold of that much hay. Papa gets sick of hauling it. But, for you ladies with farms and you have old hay from the animals’ bedding, you have a gold mine on your hands. That old bedding hay would make a garden like you wouldn’t believe.

But I hardly ever throw my old peelings in the garbage. I always take them out to my garden, even in the winter. All of my old bread, I throw out to the birds, as the bird droppings are good for your soil. Wildlife in your yard is good for the soil… well, as long as the life isn’t too wild or too lively … but I mean birds and squirrels.

Now, I use no — absolutely no — poisons in my yard to kill things, like bugs. The lady next door comes out with her bottle of bug spray and I shudder. Because I let herbs grow like naughty unruly children all over my yard. They grow where they wanna and never stay in the herb garden, and that’s ok with this mother. The more the merrier. Herbs are just plain stinkin’ fun. But I make tea with most of them and I don’t want bugspray in my morning tea, thank you.

Related Links:

Mulching Ruth Stout Style – Ruth Stout was all about mulch. Layers, piles, heaps, mounds, and more. She captured Organic Gardening readers’ attention with her passion for no-work gardening. In this vintage entry from How to Grow Vegetables and Fruits by the Organic Method, Stout addressed readers’ FAQs about her approach to gardening.

by Barbara Bamberger Scott

Ruth Stout and Permanent Hay Mulch : Mother Earth News Full text of the article from Mother Earth News, a publication in the field of Home & Garden, Issue # 172 – February/March 1999.

I have old-fashioned Seven Sister Roses right outside my dining room window. They are asleep now but, in the spring, they will wake up and put on their prettiest pink party frocks. They tease me all spring through my dining room window to come outside and play. As I write in the spring, I can see them teasing, bobbing and bowing, outside in the sunlight. They gossip and fret because they are in my kitchen garden, and this humbles them and causes them to bow in shame.

I try not to waste any of the blooms, but I have to catch them quickly before they fade. I snip the blooms with scissors in the early mornings. They are tiny roses, about seven on each stem. So I use them to make Rose Vinegar, for one thing. Also, I cut long branches of them and hook them over my doorways in the dining room. Or I lay them in my chandelier over the family table. I am very generous with them, and extravagant. Sometimes I float them over a china tea cup of herb tea … it’s nice for company. When they are just coming into bloom, I try to pick them and keep them fresh on the table in a vase. Often, I can put sprigs of new fresh herbs in with them to keep them company.

At the end of the season, I take what blooms are left and just put them in a lightly weaved basket, and they dry nicely on their own. I have to turn them here and there when I think of it. They make some nice potpourri. I start with them and continue to add flowers to my basket as they bloom in the spring and throughout the summer. Often, I have taken a bouquet of them, wrapped in a homemade cotton hanky, to a friend’s house for a hostess gift.

To make the Rose Vinegar, I just take a nice jar and fill it with hot, but not boilng, white vinegar. And then I stuff the jar with roses and pretty leaves. Then I put my jars in a sunny window and let them brew for a long time, at least a few weeks. I use my Rose Vinegar for a rinse for my hair. After I shampoo my hair, I fill a jar almost to the top with hot water. Then I put some Rose Vinegar in it, about a fourth cup. Then I rinse my hair with it.

Well, I had better go. Shhhhh. It’s almost spring and the sisters will be waking up, and they will be teasing me again to come out and play, and to make Rose Vinegar and potpourri, and to wrap them in homemade cotton hankies.

Dear Ladies,

The herbs I dry are the mints and some of the more leafy herbs. Also the raspberry leaves are simple to dry. Often, I just cut branches of the raspberries and hang the branches or canes over the top of the window — not in the sun — up on the top windowsill. I let the leaves dry on the branches. Then I take the dried and crumpled leaves down and put them in a jar for the winter.

Be sure to label everything.

I also do this with the little hot peppers. I just hang the whole bush of hot peppers up on a nail and then the little peppers dry by themselves.

I decorate my dining room with the hanging bunches of herbs. I hang the long branches of the seven sister roses over my country chandelier above the family table. And this is how the small sweet tea roses dry for the winter. They look very romantic for the summer, hung in long branches. I also hang branches of roses over two small doorways to the dining room. With the dried roses, I make rose vinegar for a rinse for my long hair.

Most of the herbs I grow I dry, with the exception of comfrey, chives and parsley. Comfrey I just use in season because it doesn’t dry well for me. The chives and parsley I freeze in jars. The herbs come out easily when you freeze it this way. I think you can dry parsley pretty simply in an oven … I just like it frozen the best.

I try to keep a pot of parsley growing in the house for the winter. Sometimes it does pretty well and other times not. I just cut the parsley tops with the scissors when I need it for cooking.

When drying your herbs, dry them in small bunches. Otherwise, they will mold before they dry.

Last year I just put up a string that stretched over my doorway to the dining room from the living room. I hung my herbs on this string with clothes pins. It’s a wide double sized doorway. I hung some of the larger long red peppers up, and the camphor, and horehound, and small bunches of sage. Of course, the basils dry well, also.

The chamomile I dry on newspapers. Well, mine is wild, short and stubby … too short to hang up.

In the fall I hang my zinnias and marigolds upside down to keep their color. They look so festive for the Autumn. I grow seeta, a dark purple flower, especially to dry for the fall. I love to buy big pumpkins and squash to decorate the house with them and the dried flowers.

I don’t use any chemicals to dry my herbs and flowers.

The children and I have made many pictures with the herbs and flowers. We put them on white cardboard and put clear contact paper on the top. Mary made fancy ladies with the dried flowers for their skirts.

Love,
Connie

Dear Wives and Mothers,

Yesterday afternoon I went visiting with my neighbor, and Papa put in the garden. I have a garden up by my back door … it’s just my kitchen garden. But Papa took over the big garden. When I got home from my visit, Papa was working hard, making sure there was not a weed anywhere before he began to plant. I said, “Honey, do you want me to help you?”

He was silent … wheels turning … thoughts churning. “How do I tell my wife that I don’t want her near this garden? With her back to the land naturalist ideas? That I don’t want hay and straw and newspapers and old rugs and plain junk in my garden?”

“Well, I guess we have different ideas on gardening. Right, Honey?” I answer my own questions when he is silent, but I can read his thoughts. “Well, I guess I will go on back to the house and fix supper. Your garden will look nice.”

Papa is relieved and happy that his wife won’t have a say in this garden this year. Mama lives in her own little world where herbs and flowers grow naturally and, like spoiled children, they can grow and flourish wherever they would like to. “Well, Honey, our yard is a wildlife preserve for herbs and edible plants. I hate grass. I want the whole lawn to be herbs. What’s the deal on grass … who needs it? It’s boring.” Well, I don’t talk quite that bold to Papa, but these are my thoughts on the whole situation. My dream, of course, is to just mow the chamomile. Herbs can be a ground cover. Well, they can be … but probably not in our yard and not in Papa’s lifetime.

Papa is sitting beside me this morning, writing out his bills. I just read what I wrote to you ladies about him. I said, “Right, Papa, isn’t that what is in your head about me? That I am a naturalist nut?”

“Well, ya never know, Honey. Maybe someday I will change my views on grass.” Well, when Papa says “Maybe someday,” that always means he is gently telling Mama, as the weaker vessel, that he is the head of the house and grass is what everyone else has in their yard and grass will be the rule of the day.

In the old days … when all the children were little? We had no grass in our front yard … the children and all of their friends wore it off from play. I loved it. Children and no grass … just good old dirt. People would come by and say, “You don’t have any grass in your front yard.

I’d say, “Yes, but we have children. That’s the main thing.”

And now we have lush thick grass in our front yard and no children to stomp it out. It breaks my heart … no children … just grass. And no grandchildren yet … just lush green thick grass. I guess this is why I hate grass. It says so plainly, “Your children have grown and there are no little ones to take their place.” I guess, if I have a ground cover of herbs and wild flowers, at least it soothes Mama’s heart a little. At least she doesn’t have to look at the thick and green grass.

But, like Papa says, “Well, ya never know. With God all things are possible.” Papa knows that I live from the visions in my heart … and when Mama prays the supernatural happens. One thing above all else, Papa loves me and trusts the visions in my heart.

Maybe … just maybe … someday … grass won’t grow at the Hultquists home again … just children.

Love,
Connie