While I was born and raised in Chicago–and I mean in the Gage Park area which is in Chicago itself and not a suburb– my farming roots go back to my Grandmother who was born and raised on a farm in Verdigre Nebraska. (Present population 500.)  I remember some of the interesting things she told me. For instance, when our basement flooded for the umpteen time she mentioned despite the fact that Nebraska was noted for dry, hot summer weather, it was the super-rainy summers that were the hardest for crops.  She also mentioned there was so much relentless bitter cold winter winds that her family actually burnt their kitchen table to keep warm.  Trees you see, were almost unknown there.  It was soon after that when her father picked up and moved to Chicago and was fortunate to buy, with the help of a mortgage, a coal company! What else?  He never had to again burn any furniture to keep warm!

My grandmother seemed to have a lifetime subscription to the Farm Journal.  Ever once in a while Farm Journal sent her a questionnaire to make sure she was in farming–I guess they started to wonder since the address they sent the magazine was in the heart of Chicago.   When I was just a few years old she and I sat together in the winter looking over the latest Burpee and Vaughan’s seed catalog picking out stuff like carrots, beans, white marigolds, etc.  Then with her guidance, I spaded our little garden, one shovelful at a time in that blue clayey ground.  When the carrots were just big enough to chomp on, which was in early June me thinks, I pulled some up and rinsed them at an outdoor faucet–not really well, thinking back–and bit into sheer delight–I also shared them with my friends who also delighted in them. Tthinking back this was also about the same time of the year that the Deadly Nightshade berries were ripe and also about the time of the year the kids of the neighborhood had Nightshade Fights–no snow anymore so we had to have something to throw at each other…