tiny garden

My little friend Talia made this miniature garden. Isn't it lovely?

When I was in about the fourth grade I had an issue of Holly Hobbie magazine "Home Times" that I loved. I read and reread it. I even stayed after school and copied the cover illustration (Holly Hobbie on a tree swing!) of the magazine onto Mrs. Brown's bulletin board.

There was an article in this magazine with instructions on making a miniature garden. It had rows of real tiny lettuces and a little garden shed. Tiny plant stakes. Tiny radishes. Itty bitty rakes and hoes. I studied the article and the photograph, wishing that I too could have a tiny garden with real miniature lettuces and real dirt.

So you can imagine when I saw little Talia's garden how my heart skipped a beat. I was reminded immediately and completely of my dream miniature garden.

My little friends Talia and Drew are enjoying childhood. They play in the brook, finding crawfish and frogs and who knows whatelse. They create tiny gardens. They ride their bikes freely all about their farm playing an imagined game only they know, cows mooing loudly as they pedal past. There are hammacks and tree swings everywhere you look. And in the upstairs room of their playhouse is a bed, swathed in mosquito net with a moat of books, just waiting for a lazy afternoon of reading and napping.