by Jon Coe

Created on: April 07, 2007   Last Updated: August 18, 2011

My Grandmother had an extremely green thumb, as they say. I will always remember helping her to plant the things she loved to grow. She liked her vegetables and they usually comprised of shallots, green beans and beetroot, to name just a few.

She had a very small garden that sat on an embankment behind her little bungalow, in the depths of the English countryside. She loved pickling her home grown vegetables and I liked eating them, especially my favorite, pickled onions!

One day, my Grandma built a greenhouse with her bare hands! At the age of eighty-three, she was as spry as a squirrel! Her cat always sat by her side; and I am sure that with his help, the construction was made a lot easier for her, just by a mere lick of a paw and the twitch of a whisker.

One day, my Grandmother's green thumb was put to the challenge:  She had planted a row of vegetable seeds; I don't remember what they were. She wanted to mark the row of seeds with a couple of pieces of bamboo or twig. However, after briefly searching her small garden, she realized that there was really nothing suitable for her to use.

Being the resourceful and mentally agile old lady that she was, she decided to go into her house and look for something there. Bingo! Right there in the hearth of her fire place, sat a small pile of freshly chopped, kindling wood. Perfect solution!

Well, the spring showers came and several days flew by. April showers; A wonderful way of welcoming and watering the seedlings into their new home! We thought! Eventually, the sun returned and my Grandma and I ventured into her garden, to see how many seeds, nature had yielded for us. Alas! Not one, single little green leafed seedling had offered itself to the English country air! We were very disappointed!

All was not lost:  We checked the empty seed packet and thought that maybe the seeds were old or maybe, they needed some more time? So we planned our return in a few more days.

Upon our return, we knew instantly that our efforts had been futile; The land lay dark with a weed or two, but nothing more! Then! We noticed, that one of the pieces of kindling wood, had a green sprout, growing right out of the side of it. It was amazing! It had actually taken root in the soil and it was growing!

As well as an amazingly green thumb, my Grandmother had an amazingly great sense of humor. She laughed and said, "If only I had panted a whole row of kindling wood"!

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