Braving Boys

Quote: Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

We planted a garden last summer, and while it looked promising for a good long time, ultimately, it failed. I think we got one pepper. And a few small tomatoes. But our corn never materialized. And cucumbers never surfaced. And. Wait. We had sunflowers. Yes, sunflowers.

We’re trying again this year. Actually, we are not trying. Joey is. He’s done it all — prepped the soil, dug little trenches for seeds, sprinkled them into the dirt, covered them, mulched walkways between rows, labeled and placed sticks near their respective fruits and veggies, and now, we wait. and water. and wait. and hope like heck that small animals and bugs don’t tear the whole thing apart, because Joey will just be overjoyed if his garden grows. And so will his great grandma, all the way up in Heaven, probably wearing her own straw gardening hat and admiring the work of the boy she knew for only two years.

Boys with corn, July 2009

Joey and Danny have checked on their backyard garden every day since they worked so hard to plant the thing, which makes that plot of dirt and all of its sprouting nutrition a project well worth making. I figured long ago that even if food was never born from that box out back, my guys would grow and blossom because of their masterpiece — they hand-picked their favorite packets of seeds, shoveled and pushed wheelbarrows full of sand, dirt and mulch, sunk their hands into the earth and still, months later, they monitor the progress of the fruits (and veggies) of their labor with unwavering excitement. I love that my boys have become gardeners (their great grandma would be so proud), and I love that today, they came shouting for me because of what they discovered: Corn.

And here it is (the corn), in all its glory (and taller than my tallest baby), with little cobs popping up all over the place. And here they are (the boys), in all of their glory — and with their favorite summer harvest: Fla-vor-ice. (Apparently, they are not the only fans.)