how does your garden grow...

the whole time i have been working on this garden
(and i'm telling you...it feels like a LOT of time...
i had no idea how much time this would take...)
i keep thinking about my uncle emmett.

when i planted my first garden
(back before i started shooting weddings)
my uncle emmett would stop by
to tell me how to keep the birds from
pulling my shoots up
and what to plant next to what
and when...
he would drive by the back lot
where the garden was
in his big old blue truck
to check on how it was doing
even when i wasn't home...
and then would call me when i
did get home to tell me that he was by
and it looked like the string beans
were finally coming up...

i can't tell you how much i miss that advice...
the sound of that big old blue truck coming up the road,
the little dog on the seat next to him...
i miss his big booming voice, his wheezy easy laugh
especially when he was making a joke at your expense
(cause that's what we do best in our family...
it means we love you...)

so today, when i went out and saw that
where last night there were NO string beans,
today they were popping up all over the place...
i immediately thought of him...
and how he would tell me to get some
aluminum pie plates out there to stop the birds
and how he would laugh when i told him
i already had to yell at 2 crows and a robin.

♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥