Today, we visited my 88 year old Italian Grandma. For my entire life, she and my grandfather have had a garden. Simply a garden doesn’t really do it justice. When I was young, my grandfather built a stone wall to create a lower level of the garden. Back then, the garden was massive and the yard was filled with a variety of fruit trees. When my grandfather passed away over ten years ago, my Grandma just kept it all going. Sure, she scaled back from 200 tomato plants to maybe 100 and there are fewer fruit trees, but she still comes to life in the summer when she can be in the garden. All winter long she plans, plants seeds, until the time is just right to get everything into the ground. It’s all pretty amazing.

When I was younger, I used to spend weeks at a time at my grandparent’s house. I loved to help them pick vegetables, make tomato sauce, and be out in the sunshine with them.

Today as I watched my own girls playing in the garden, baskets in hand, gathering bits and pieces from the yard, I was taken back to that time. I actually remembered writing about a particular moment with a woodchuck. So I went digging and found an autobiography that I clearly remember writing in sixth grade.

I wrote:

On the Farm

Every summer my Grandma gets two weeks off from work. I sleep at her house one of those weeks.

They have a huge garden with two levels. They have all kinds of vegetables and fruit trees.

I help them weed, water, and pick the fruits and vegetables. I also help make tomato sauce with my Grandma (who we call Pop). He has a machine to do it with. You have to turn a handle and it squishes the tomatoes and makes it into sauce.

One summer I can remember very clearly.

I was just walking around the garden. I walked along the wall of the lower level just looking at the plants when I saw something rustling in the beans. I saw a big tail and a brown huge tail that looked like a beavers so I called, “Beaver, beaver!!!” They told me that is was a woodchuck not a beaver and that it was going to knock down the plants.

My grandma got a rake and went to the lower level and tried to push the woodchuck out of the garden. My grandfather just watched from the wall calling out commands for my Grandma.

Finally my Grandma pushed the woodchuck out the gate while my Grandpa helps the gate open.

Every summer since I have kept a close eye out for those beavers.

 

Reading this now, it seems like pretty simple writing for a sixth grader. But it is interesting how the things that were important to me about the garden over 20 years ago are still the things that remain the most vivid today.  I don’t actually remember ever learning to really write a small moment, although this piece has many of the key elements. I found myself thinking about what I would have taught my sixth grade self. How would I have coached this writer? What mentors would I have consulted?

Here are some pictures my five year old took in the garden today. She was pretty proud of these images. I wonder if she will someday write about these moments.