Even then if you had told me in that moment that 10 years later exactly I would be 2 weeks out from sending my husband overseas to fight in a war started by that same plane, I would have told you that you were fucking nuts. My husband was not in the military at that time… I had babies at home. But here we are. 10 years later. Husband deploys to Afghanistan in 2 weeks. Funny that. Well, not really, but you have to laugh or you will just try really hard not to cry.

We have gotten criticism regarding this decision for quite awhile. “How could you do this when you have children?”, is the most common. And this is always the most confusing one for me.

I guess it is because some Americans don’t understand who it is who protects them.

When my husband left for Basic Training, he left with the knowledge that most of the people he would be training with would be closer to our eldest son’s age than his own. For those of you who would not like to do the math, that means we generally send our near-children to protect us. And in protecting us, I mean everything from firing guns at seen and unseen enemies all the way across to pulling babies and grandmothers, dead or alive, out of disaster ravaged houses. A good portion of them are not even old enough to drink (which is so unfair when you consider what we are asking them to do).

Regardless of age or intent, we, soldiers and their families, do this willingly, which is more choice than anyone of the innocent people who died on 9/11 had. A few months ago we took our children to the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania. We wanted to explain why their father did this and why he had to go. One of my kids was barely old enough to remember 9/11, one was barely alive before 9/11 and one came into the world after 9/11. So we stood and looked at pictures and at a big green field that use to be a crater and we answered questions. So many questions. And they get it. They understand that Dad goes away for a little while on the gamble that because of what he is doing (which is building roads in Afghanistan, BTW), someone else’s mom and dad won’t have to go away for forever.

My garden is starting her slow slide into a susurrus peace and I am glad for the upcoming rest. I will tie a yellow ribbon around the not quite old oak tree in my front yard and life will continue – changed but still there. Just like it did 10 years ago, when the fate of my life and my love was shifted by an airplane that I initially thought had simply flown off course. But it knew its course and, now, so do we.

Note: Comments are turned off on this post because last time I posted about my husband’s military service I recieved a few unwanted (and one unwarrented) comments about his service and the decision to join later in life. I know there are many of you out there who wish us well and I really appreciate your thanks and support. But with my husband’s deployment so close, I do not wish to have this time marred by a few comments from idiots who have nothing better to do than to make some “profound” but rude point on my lowly blog about how they object to the military or our choice. I am sorry to the rest of you that this had to be done. I hope you understand.

A few weeks ago, I was asked if I would like to review a children’s book called “Holly Bloom’s Garden.” I don’t review much on here these days as I am rather busy with my other job, but this one I agreed to.  The story is about a little girl named Holly who is having troubles in the garden.  I thought that maybe someday a little girl might come to visit who would like to read about gardens.

The children that go through the foster care system can technically be from all walks of life. But in reality, many are from very poor homes. And when I mean poor, I mean both financially and emotionally. A common misconception is that kids who end up in “the system” are there because of abuse. This is incorrect. Many end up there due to neglect. They are children that no one cares for. They often arrive at their foster homes with little more than the clothes on their backs. This is why there are pretty dresses and clothes in the room. Many most likely never had nice clothes, let alone a pretty dress.

The book Holly Bloom’s Garden, a little girl in a loving family takes care of a garden and fails. Still, she is loved and through the love of her family, she finds a way to succeed. The book is beautifully illustrated with scenes that are seemingly realistic with lush gardens full of flowers, then you realize things like that daffodils and foxglove are not often found blooming at the same time.  But that is not the point. This is a child’s fantasy of a garden and the book is a sweet portrayal of that garden.

To my future little girls, this book will seem even more fantastical. A little girl from a home with two parents, food on the table and clean. Where drugs are not an everyday fact of life. Never mind that there is a yard and the little girl tries to grow flowers in that yard. Gardens are so foreign to many of these children that they are not even comprehensible to their mind. But that is my job. My job is to show that, at least that while they are at my house, that houses like the one in Holly Bloom’s Garden exist and that they deserve it. It is my job to show them what a home and garden should be. And then send them back to their home.  And they may go back and find that their home has changed for the better. Or they may find that it has not changed at all.

Someday, one of these girls will go home with the Holly Bloom’s Garden book tucked into her bag. It will be a possession for them and a fantasy, maybe. In the meantime, this book will sit in the empty room until the next little girl comes to visit.

If you have ever considered becoming a foster parent, I encourage you to look into it. It is a hard job with low pay, but so is being a parent in general. If you have room in your house and heart, consider doing it.  The need is great everywhere for foster parents.

If you have a little girl (or boy) who like to garden, these activities that go along with the book are helpful.

Order seeds for garden – check

Bitch to husband how winter is too long in Cleveland and why can’t we move to Florida – check

Check ground obsessivly for snowdrops – check

Reserve spot at the CSA – check

“What?!?” you might ask, “But Hanna, don’t you garden? Why do you need a CSA share.” (Maybe you are not asking that. Maybe you are asking, “what the hell is CSA – is it like a crazy, militant neo-gardener organization hell bent on taking over the world and planting gardens everywhere? (Or maybe you are asking, “Why Florida? I though only old people, hispanic immigrants, red headed cops and animated animals lived in Florida.”))

Let’s back up. One question at a time.

What the hell is a CSA?

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  A group of small farmers get together and say, “If you pay us money up front, we will grow food and you can pick it up at regular intervals through the growing season.”  It is really a win-win situation. The farmers have a guaranteed buyer for their crops and products, you get to eat locally, organically and often for a price comparable to shopping for the plain Jane stuff at the grocery store.

But you have a vegetable garden, why do you need a CSA?

I do have a vegetable garden. A rather small vegetable garden. What I don’t have is an apiary, pigs, chickens (though I am really working on that one), cows, vineyards, orchards and about a dozen other things that my local farmers do.

The CSA I belong to provides not only vegetables, but other products as well, from honey to baked goods to cheese to meats and more (though they have veggie only options too).

Not all CSA’s have that, but even if you do have your own vegetable garden, unless you are one of those country folks, chances are you can’t grow all your food in your veggie plot. A CSA is a nice way to supplement.

Do you like being in a CSA?

Love, love, love it. While it is a bit of a hassle to pick up the bags once a week, it is easier than grocery shopping as it is all packed, paid for and ready to go when I get there. It is like a farmer’s market in a bag.

Also, I am an adventurous cook and eater. The mystery of What Will Be In My CSA Bag this week is like my own personal cooking and eating game show. “And this week on “Iron Chef CSA”, we have *drumroll* kohlrabi, muscovy duck, swiss chard, farmer cheese and heirloom tomatoes.  How will Hanna prepare this and convince her swiss chard hating family that it really is a tasty vegetable?  Tune in to find out…”  And damn it, I do convince them that it is tasty, mostly by lying and telling them it is spinach.   They will eat spinach but not swiss chard. Go figure.

Back on topic.

I have priced it out and 9 out of 10 times, what I get in the bag would have cost far more if I had bought each item on its own and 3/4 of the time costs about what I would have paid for a comparable non-organic/local/unique variety items at the grocery (all without having to risk being exposed to the next homepage feature for People of Walmart).

Point is that if you have not looked around your local area for a CSA, you should check it out. And by check it out, I mean now, while there is still snow on the ground. These days, CSAs sell out their shares pretty quick and if you wait until the weather warms, They Will Be Full.

Why Florida?

You thought I forgot, didn’t you?  It’s warm, duh.  And shame on you for making such broad, sterotypical assumptions about that fine state.

Sicily Kitty is… was my cat of 14 years. How old she really is, I do not know, because she came to me as an adult cat.

I knew she was the cat for me because I found her at a plant nursery. My roommate and I had gone to a plant nursery near my parents’ house to find plants. That was when I was a new, new gardener (who thought vegetables would grow in shade if I just willed them too hard enough). I was buying plants for my very first garden, one that was mine and mine only.

My parents live in the country, which has its own odd set of rules. My roommate was from the city, and they know nothing of the country. The two sides met when my roommate, who was moving a planter to look at it, came face to face with what she (urbanite that she was) thought was a bobcat. She screamed. The 12 year old girl at the counter cheerfully commented that the flat faced, round eyed, short tailed stray cat would be shot by her father later that afternoon. A geranium, a planter and a flat faced, round eyed, short tailed stray cat went into the box we put in the car to go home. The cat promptly knocked itself silly on the rear window of my hatchback when she attempted to jump through the glass in an effort to escape. Thus, Sicily Kitty became my pet.

Sicily only had 1/3 of a tail. How she lost the other 2/3s is a mystery. Frost bite as a kitten was one theory, slamming doors was another, human cruelty was yet a third (though I hope not). Regardless, her short tail represented the quality of her life before I adopted her.  It was not an easy one and I imagine that, once she shook off the effects of concussion gained through attempted escape, she must have felt she had fallen into paradise. She never failed to show that she appreciated that. In fact, many people commented that she seemed more dog than cat in her devotion to me.

In my garden, she was an ever present fixture. She often lounged in sunny and shady spots, depending on her mood. But she was not a good for nothing slouch either. She was a keen vole hunter (and never a bird hunter). So skilled she was at vole hunting that it was not uncommon to see her snacking on 2-3 a day in the summer. We then began to worry where all these rodents were hiding and what kind of rodent problem we had because, as far as we could tell, she never left the yard. But as long as she was on the job, we figured she took care of decreasing the surplus vole population.

So talented and skilled a vole hunter she was, that I kid you not, she would occasionally try to entertain us with “vole juggling”. You can imagine the shock (and horror) of dinner guests one summer evening when Sicily started to juggle for us at the outdoor dinner table for a full 15 minutes. She tossed the small, black rodent up into the air and then would catch it in her mouth again and again. They say that cats will play with their food, but Sicily took it to a whole new level.

Sicily took ill a year and 1 month ago. I know that because my husband left for 7 months of training a year and 3 weeks ago.  The vet had told me there was not much that could be done for her and the end would be soon. I held her and cried and told her she could not leave me now. Not when I needed her the most. She pulled a 10^th life out of the deck just for me and made a miraculous recovery.

But when you live on borrowed time, you still have to pay the interest. Sicily was not the same cat. Her heart was there, but her body was failing her. She had slowed down and spent more time in sunny garden spots than hunting voles. She had difficulty jumping and even walking sometimes. But she was not in pain and she was there for me. She kept me company when I was most lonely.

So, when I found her lying listlessly on the steps yesterday, I knew the loan finally needed to be paid. I knew that it would be selfish and cruel to ask for another extension and besides, Death rarely makes that loan twice. She is, after all, an old cat and she deserved her final rest. She was still in no pain, but the strength was simply pouring out of her body.

She could still stumble forward a few steps at a time, and she wanted to go out. I love my garden too, I understood.  So I let her out into the garden where she disappeared into the shadows and sun among the spring flowers for a few hours. She came back in when a late afternoon thundercloud broke into pieces over the garden. She no sooner made it into the house when she collapsed, unable to walk any further. A few hours later, she was gone.

She will be laid to rest in a sunny spot in the garden.  It will be a place of vole legend, I am sure. One that vole parents will warn their vole children to avoid because a great vole hunter’s spirit still resides there, lying in the sun until an unwary vole happens by.

The rest of the morning is filled with tears and explanations about life and death and the incredibly short life spans of fish/rodents/cats/dogs. This is normally shortly followed by explanations about the average life span of humans and how, “no, I will not be dropping dead tomorrow like the fish/rodent/cat/dog did today”.

Then comes the burial.  The coffin is typically what is at hand. The box from the totally cute pair of shoes bought last week or the box from that really awesome book you ordered from Amazon 2 days ago (they ship fast). These toss offs from commercial purchases take on suddenly greater spiritual duties.

Then there is the hole in the garden.  Normally dug by a parent then filled in by a child. Our children hold very real mock funerals for what we know is practice for the very real thing to come some day soon.

Sometimes the vet can talk us into cremation or pet cemeteries, but the fact of the matter is we feel better when we bring these pets home.  Our gardens are safe places for the mortuary remains of fond furry memories. They are places that our children can visit when the mood strikes them… someday, even after we have moved on. “Ma’am, you don’t  know me, but I lived here once and my favorite pet is buried in your backyard. Can I stop by?” Who would deny such a request?

Here lies Speedy, faithful pet rat for one year to his owner Logan (who is six). Speedy’s life was tragically shortened by a stroke.  May he rest in peace in perpetuity under the peonies and ash tree, next to the other much beloved pets that came before him.