An eight-year-old approached his parents who were both quietly reading on a spring afternoon. “Can I plant some vegetables in the backyard?” I asked.

Mom and Dad looked at each other. Neither had any interest in gardening. Somehow young Drew had picked up a recessive gene, I suppose. Dad looked at Mom who shrugged a little. “Ahh . . . sure,” he answered.

An hour later curiosity pulled my parents away from their books. In the backyard, they found me with a shovel larger than myself digging up a plot bigger than they could have imagined. As good parents, they enthusiastically supported my initiative. More than sixty years later, I’m still gardening.

The fitted sheet, contributed by Kit, shields tender young broccoli plants from an intense Washington sun. Even though air temperatures rarely exceed 80 degrees near the Puget Sound, clear blue skies make the sun HOT. But, if established in the late summer, broccoli could bear in the chilly wet winter until April.

Mom and Dad sacrificed some yard grass and bought me all the seeds I wanted. But they enabled a life-long joy. Lord make me sensitive to opportunities when a little sacrifice and some seeds–literal or figurative–can give a precious gift.

Drew