For some reason, when the beginning of May rolls around, my mind dredges up a phrase from a Robert Frost poem. It was about rabbits in the pea-brush, and for a long time, I imagined it was about the old pea vines from the past year’s garden. Then, one day as we watched a popular gardening show, all was made clear. Pea-brush, it turned out, was twigs and small branches of tree seedlings and other brush cut and inserted into the ground along the rows when peas are planted. Their purpose is to give the young pea vines something to climb on so they can grow tall, avoiding the wasteful sprawl the vines naturally acquire as they grow in tangles closer to the ground.
Peas were always one of the first things I helped my dad plant every spring as soon as he spaded and raked the garden. A few early crops went in as soon as the garden plot was ready. Lettuce, potatoes, onion sets, radishes and the peas went in right away. Sometimes, we’d find brave green shoots poking their way through a half-inch of new snow. But, even if some of the plants succumbed to a final lick of winter, seeds were cheap and it wasn’t too late to replant a row or two. The old Farmer’s Almanac seemed to recommend potatoes be in the ground by Good Friday, no matter what the calendar or the groundhog said, and Dad always tried to comply.
One of our favorite springtime treats was new potatoes and fresh baby peas in a rich sauce made with real cream and butter from our cows. The tiny new potatoes would be scrubbed and boiled with the skins on and the sweet young peas cooked for only a couple minutes to turn them bright green before mixing them into the creamy sauce. There would be a great platter of Mother’s fluffy baking-powder biscuits and a bowl of hot, soft-boiled eggs to complete the meal. With our cows, chickens and garden, it came very close to Dad’s goal of raising all the food his family required.
Dad called himself “a moonlight farmer” and that pretty much describes it. He was, as well as being the Chevy dealer in Knoxville for many years, his chief mechanic (and later, after officially retiring, he had a repair shop he built next to the house). From long habit, his day in the garage was from 8 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. with an hour off at noon. After supper and on weekends, he worked at home in the garden, the barn, the house, the basement or his workshop. He milked two cows twice a day and cared for a few calves, pigs, chickens and a pony with sporadic help from us girls and Mother. For a few years, he raised dogs (dachshunds, in addition to the two or three dogs that were family pets). He planted and maintained an orchard of several varieties of apples, peaches, pears, plums, cherries and walnuts. In his “spare time” he replaced the rickety wooden back steps of the house with concrete steps and a large patio, and built an elaborate three-tier fountain to grace Mother’s fairy-tale flower garden.
Somewhere in there, he found time to serve on the city council and organize a local Cribbage Club. By the time I was in high school, Dad built the miniature golf course. He spent long hours maintaining the greens and beds of beautiful flowers, mowing, making improvements and adjustments. Along with Mother and myself, he spent nearly every evening from Memorial Day to Labor Day, at the miniature golf course until at least 10:30 p.m. except when it rained. On those rare occasions, as in wintertime, Dad would be at home, reading, working on some small repair project, playing Cribbage with Mother or me or watching an occasional television program. Never a big TV fan, Dad seldom watched anything except the ten o’clock news and was likely to settle for listening to it on the radio while he sat at the kitchen table eating one of his favorite bedtime snacks. In summer, that snack was crushed soda crackers in a tall glass, covered with cold, fresh milk which, coming from our own cows, was about as rich as today’s half-and-half. In winter, he preferred sliced onions between slices of white bread, brushed with olive oil, lightly salted and stored in the refrigerator for several hours, washed down with a tall glass of the rich, cold milk. Well, he never had trouble getting to sleep at night, and he never had a cold.
A former volunteer and substitute teacher in the Solon schools, Milli is an artist and a poet living near Morse creating unique greeting cards and handmade books.