I rolled around on the grass in the backyard, playing with our beagle, Dopy, and a barn cat who stopped off for a visit on her way back to the barn after an afternoon of mousing in the orchard. Mama cat enjoyed my attention, but she was in a hurry. She didn’t want to miss getting her share of the soppy milk filter from the milk strainer that Daddy threw into the cat food dish when the milking chores were finished.

The June afternoon had been hot, but the grass on our back lawn was in the shade of the house, so it felt cool against my skin. Laying on my back, I watched a few fluffy clouds slowly move across the blue sky, listened to birds twittering, a bee buzzing, a heifer in the barnyard bawling, and the comforting, rhythmic thrum of the Surge vacuum pump in the barn. I loved the sound of it. It meant I knew where Daddy was, and that the cows were getting milked. All was right with the world.

Nearby, Mom worked like her energy was endless. On her knees, she dug and smoothed the flowerbed soil to repair last winter’s damage. Freshly sprouted perennial plants had their dead stems cut away, while annual plants killed by the cold were removed and replaced with new, blossoming plants.

I knew when Daddy finished milking the cows and had let them out to pasture for the night. The Surge vacuum pump was turned off and shortly after that, he came to see what Mom was doing. Excitedly, Mom showed him all the work she had done while he was doing his chores. He admired the beautiful flowerbed arraignment and smiled with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. Daddy teased, “Those are pretty flowers, but I saw some that look just like them growing wild along one of the line fences.” Mom made an indignant huffing sound and began to gather up her gardening tools for the night. Daddy gave her a clumsy hug.

Pulling away, Mom mildly advised, “You smell like barn. Go wash and change clothes.”  

Despite Daddy’s playful teasing, he supported Mom’s love of flowers. Yesterday he took Mom, me and a couple of sisters and a brother into Marshfield to buy flowers. We visited the Hefko greenhouse on the corner of Oak and Fifth Street. It had a cozy store and work area connected to a glass building that was filled with the earthy smell of damp soil and hundreds of sweetly blossoming plants. I loved the place. It was beautiful, felt permanent, and like only good things happened there.

Daddy took a route home that I wasn’t familiar with, to stop at another greenhouse outside of the city of Marshfield. As we got out of the car, I was told this was Britten’s greenhouse. It was like Hefko’s in every way, right down to the cozy shop and work area connected to a greenhouse. In my mind, I imagined the smell of a greenhouse as if it were exhaling the beautiful union of water, clean soil and plant growth. The only difference I noticed was that Britten’s had more greenhouse buildings.   

Mom loved flowers. Sometimes people we knew would stop by to see her well-cared-for-beautiful flowerbeds and our backyard Mary shrine. But it seemed to me that there were flowers everywhere on our farm. Early in June, the cow pasture was covered with thousands of white daisies. In the cow lane, there were tall, fuzzy-leafed, yellow-blossoming mullein. Purple geraniums proliferated in the woods. All summer long, as one batch of wildflowers faded, other ones opened their beautiful buds for us to enjoy.

My brother Billy seemed to know the names of every plant that grew on our farm. As I grew older and walked through the fields to the woods with him, he’d point out wildflowers: daisy fleabane, rue anemone, white sweet clover, jewel weed, and pink lady’s thumb. I tried very hard to remember all those names.

Many years later, when I gave birth to my daughter, Niki, my husband Arnie bought a pot of orange lilies as a gift for me. I loved them because unlike cut roses that shrivel and die, I was able to plant the lilies in my flowerbed. It was a gift that kept on giving!

When Daddy came to visit me after Niki was born, he saw the pot of orange blossoming lilies that Arnie had given me. With a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, he smiled and teased, “I saw some wildflowers in the woods the other day that looked just like them!”