A Children’s Story told in the Garden by Janine Payne.
After a beautiful morning walk around my garden today, I started my weekly task of tending to the weeds and then harvesting a basket of vegetables to take indoors for washing, cooking, and placing in the freezer. I’d made my way to the door, kicked off my shiny red boots, and made my way to the kitchen to admire my picks for the day: red and green peppers, okra, and tomatoes.
In the midst of my preparations, I realized that I needed to wash clothes and run upstairs to grab a basket of dirty laundry. When I'd returned, I heard a bit of snickering that seemed to be coming from the kitchen sink where I'd placed my just-picked vegetables.
Turning left and then right to see what all the ruckus was about, a jar of spaghetti sauce caught my eye on the far side of the kitchen counter. "Hmmm," I said to myself, "I don't remember taking a jar of spaghetti sauce out of the cabinet," but I shrugged it off and started washing my garden vegetables.
Now, it wasn't until today, while planning to download a few pics from my phone, that I noticed several pictures that I didn't recall taking - there was a red pepper poised atop of the spaghetti sauce; the tiny green pepper posing with a slight grin; a triple-L crop tomato...same cheeky grin; and finally, the smiling svelt okra leaning slyly against the jar of spaghetti sauce.
I laughed until the sun went down. As a matter of fact, I'm still laughing and a bit baffled about how my garden veggies pulled off the coolest photoshoot ever. I hope that this story gives you some idea of what kind of summer I’ve had with the many characters from my garden. Wait, before you go, did I tell you about the day I found my cucumbers taking a break from the summer’s heat under my weeping willow tree? I’ll share that story another day, and I’m sure that there will be more shenanigans before this gardening season is over!
Allow me to introduce the cheeky innovative characters (listed in order below):
Red-Peppa-Peppa, Green-mantis Tomato-not-Potato Atomic-the-Grape, and Okra-the-Photographer. Why don't you give them a round of applause!
