My Mother's Garden

Back when I was growing up in the interior of B.C., my mom had a very large vegetable garden. It was at the bottom of the hill, away from the house. We lived by a lake and the house was located at the top of the hill. There were three small hills in the area. One hill looked down on the houses. The houses stood on the second hill and the third hill was on one side. On the other side of the third hill was a drop-off going down to a sweat lodge, a water well and the lake. Over by the second hill, you could also get down to the lake. This was the side where we did our swimming. Off to the side of the lake was my mom's garden. It was all swampy and marsh land. It was perfect for growing.

One day, the four of us kids sat on the smallest hill that looked down on the garden. As we sat, we watched my mom weeding and picking what was needed for dinner. When she was finished, she headed back up the hill to the house. We all sat there playing until we couldn't see her head and then we ran down the hill to the garden and picked our favourite vegetables. We went over to the lake to wash our veggies and back up to the trees to eat the prizes we had picked. We had two dogs that would come to get us whenever my mom wanted us, so while we were eating and putting a big dent in our prizes, the dogs came and started pulling at our clothes. In the background, we could hear mom calling us for dinner. We went home and sat down to eat after we had washed up. We ate our dinner, barely finishing it because we were so full.

Mom was never mad at us for raiding her garden. She told us not to indulge in it too much and we never did it again. We all still love vegetables.