Mirror, Mirror

You know how when you are about to get married you look at your fiance’s parents to kind of gauge how they will be as you grow old together? One day, sitting at my future in-law’s dinner table, Greg’s mom looked across the room at her husband then back at me. “Are you ready?” she asked, “For what?” I replied. She tipped her head in Russell’s direction, “someday he is going to behave and sound a lot like his father.”
!!!!!
Okay, yes, we become our parents. Makes sense doesn’t it? I watched Greg’s dad more closely after that. Preparation maybe? I don’t know. While I was watching Russell and measuring Greg up to the ‘timeline’ his mother went under the radar. Her crazy baking skills (which have already surfaced in Greg, just look at my waist-line) and her phenomenal gardening ability. Penny had/has a *huge* garden with everything in it. Corn, carrots, potatoes, tomoatoes, kale, strawberries, peas, and anything else you can think of. Extremely impressive. I remember chickens out there in the garden. There were chickens, weren’t there? Anywho, look what Greg has been up to since we’ve moved into our new house. Please, hold all laughter until the end.
Mirror, mirror on the wall. Greg is his mother after all . . .
From top to bottom: Greg’s ‘cloche’ with tomatoes in them. Tomoates need warmer weather than what we have so he made a greenhouse for them. He is going to do another one for peppers. Salsa is our family’s favorite. we need peppers. Then the kids’ garden with flowers etc. The front bed has lettuces, peas, carrots, beets, leeks, and a couple of other things I’m forgetting. It’s overloaded. In front of that are 72 strawberry plants our neighbor wanted to get rid of then 2 blueberry bushes and a rhubarb plant.

Okay, this one is in our front yard. This one is more me. Hostas, geraniums, iris, and pansies. But I digress, let’s get back to Greg . . .

Our peach tree. Along with 2 apple trees, 2 plum trees, a pomeranate tree, and a pear tree, we have our own mini-orchard. We also have 3 varieties of grapes.

Don’t get me wrong, I *love* the fact Greg has the energy and forsight to do all of this. It saves us money and we eat fresh produce. He says it is theraputic as well so that has to save us some money from the “shrink bank”. (the shrink bank is for the kids anyway, who knows what therapy they’ll need after we’re done with them.) He says that *this* is his Farmville (without the big bucks and opportuniy for experience points)
I raise my glass to my husband! May we reap the benefits of your labor. 🙂 And to Penny, thank you for being such a great example. Just to ease minds, Russell, I have no fear of him becoming like you either. I welcome it.