Sunbathing In The Victory Garden

Sunbathing in the Victory Garden

8.5" x 11"

ink

I started this one in my sketchbook while I was on the deck, taking my morning sun.

I didn't know that one could be "low" in Vitamin D, especially at my age. Well, I never really thought about it. I assumed that, after all those sunburns and water blisters, when I was growing up and trying to get a good tan, I had enough Vitamin D to last me forever. Besides, it is in things like milk, these days.

My doctor told me that I was extremely low in vitamin D, so I got some more pills and was told to get at least 15 minutes of sun on my arms a day.

I remembered all those sunbaths we used to take, and how, in recent years, we have avoided sun due to the possibility of sunburns and things like skin cancer. My latest idea was to go out on the deck, in the morning, before it gets so hot, and take a little sunbath.

I thought that, instead of just getting sun on my arms, I would put on my shorts and sit on the deck, soaking up rays, on my pale legs, as well as my arms. I've been taking my lawn chair, a stool, a bottle of water, sunglasses, floppy hat and sunglasses, sketching materials and watercolors out on the deck. I would think it would be nice to sip coffee out there, but I'm not a coffee drinker, so I left that off.

After I take my sunbath, I go for a little walk. That is supposed to be from 15 to 30 minutes. It was taking me 15 minutes to get to the corner. Now, it is taking about 10 minutes, so I have to look at walking further. I think about walking in the evenings, but it has been either too hot, or storming, almost every night.

I try to go out before the temperature hits 90 degrees and, then, wait until it cools down below 90 in the evenings. Of course, lately, it seems that, instead of cooling down after 4 p.m., it gets hotter after that time, and doesn't cool down until really late at night. Or we have had a couple of thunderstorms at that time.

One morning, I was remembering when I would go out in our back yard in Calvert to sunbathe. I would put a quilt down near the Victory Garden and take a bottle of baby oil, that might have a little iodine in it, for a better tan. So, this is the sketch above.

With people still trying to recover from the Depression, and all of us worried about the War, a lot of people in town planted a garden-a Victory Garden. Daddy had a man come plow up part of the back yard, and I got to plant and tend to the garden. I thought we should have one!

I had carrots and radishes on the north end of the garden, potatoes just south of those, and, further to the south, I planted watermelons, corn and tomatoes.

The land slanted to the south, so water ran down to the lower south side and often left a big puddle there. Nothing I planted there came up, but I did have some tiny potatoes, carrots, and radishes, and some tiny watermelons. It wouldn't have fed us, if we needed it, for sure. I think we only tried the Victory Garden for a couple of years. It was a lot of work. And, of course, during years of drought, nothing much was growing. It would have been a waste to water it.

Now, across the street, "Toot" always had a garden going beside her garage. She worked in her yard a lot, and it showed.

Besides the garden, in my picture, you can see the garage, with the horse pen, and a shed Daddy built to house the truck he built. Also there is a three tier cage where Mama had some chickens. Daddy bought her some baby chicks to raise, and they were so cute. However, when the chickens were big enough to eat, Mama took one out and tried to kill it. It wouldn't die. Mama ended up in tears after trying to wring its neck with her hands, then wire from the clothesline. Daddy told her to get a hatchet and cut its head off. She just looked at the chicken and cried. She could not kill that chicken. So, she opened the doors to the cages, and shooed the chickens away from our yard.

Daddy had us all trying to catch chickens, all over the neighborhoood, when he got home. He was not happy!

Of course, we didn't catch any chickens. If we saw one, we would shoo it the other way. We didn't want to kill those chickens either.

For years, there were white chickens roaming around the neighborhood.

Another feature in our back yard were some posts that Daddy put up for a swing for us. He painted those white. We preferred to play on the swings at the school, just 1/2 block away. Those were some nice metal ones, that we grew up with.

We couldn't put a quilt down on the ground to sunbathe today. Fire ants would put a quick stop to that!

Today, I had blood drawn. I guess I will soon know if my sunbathing and pills have helped. I wonder if I will have to continue my routine, or if I can go back to being an indoor person.

It is kind of nice to go out and sketch. I don't care much for walking. It's kind of boring, and tiring. If it weren't for a pasture where I can see changing clouds, it would be really boring to just walk down the street.

Oh, well. I've been thinking that I am lucky to be able to walk anywhere at all. Boring or not.

Time To Plant

Grandma's Backyard

Ft. Worth

8.5" x 11"

pencil

According to the Moon Phases in my sidebar, there is a full moon. That means that it is time to plant, according to what I remember "Toot" telling me. Yet, I hear the news people say that it is too late to replant the crops that were destroyed by the floods in the Midwest. Here, it may be getting too hot. I really don't know.

My "gardening" seems to work like this. Throw something out in the yard. It may grow, or the birds, deer, or ants might eat it. We actually did plant some things that have thrived over the years, Crepe Myrtles, several rose bushes, a Mimosa tree, and a couple of Lantana plants. One small place with Day Lilies keeps coming back. But, the gorgeous Hibiscus plants that I once had didn't make it. They were huge, with blossoms the size of dinner plates. But, one morning, I went outside and there wasn't a trace that there had ever been a plant there. I don't know what happened to them. I would say that a deer ate them, but there wasn't even a little hole where the stem came out of the ground.

One year, I threw the old still life materials I had from my fall arrangement that my students had been drawing, out by a fence. Was I surprised when I had corn growing and vines of gourds that covered a fence. The gourds came back until we removed the fence.

With rapidly rising gas and food prices, along with everything else, and we hear that people are needing to grow some of their own food, I feel like we should plant something. We have room for a big garden in back, but, between fire ants and critters, and no one who wants to get outside and work , that is not going to happen.

Several years ago, I bought a few packages of seeds. I thought that I might plant something, when the moon is full, or on Good Friday. But, those days always slip past and I forget about it. I've even saved egg cartons to start some plants. I thought of starting seeds in the egg cartons, then transferring them to flower pots, or even the plastic ice cream buckets that I have been saving.

We tried to have plants in our windows and indoors, but the fire ants found them, and the plants had to go outside with some ant poison. By then, the plants were about dead. The last plants we had indoors were seeds that my grandson's teacher had sent home for the kids to plant. Our plant grew and my grandson was working on his project. However, it soon had mildew on it and we threw it in the trash.

During the War, (WWII), we had a Victory Garden in our back yard in Calvert. A lot of people grew something, and still had cows, chickens, etc. at their homes. Even people who had grocery stores. One year, my dad had someone plow the middle of our back yard to make a garden area and I was to plant it and take care of it. I actually had some very small lettuce, some small potatoes, and lots of carrots! The lot was higher on the north side, toward the front of the house, and sloped back to the street behind us. So our Victory Garden did very well on the north side where it drained. But the rains kept the south end of the garden underwater. We didn't get anything from that side.

Grandma and Grandpa Miles moved from their farm in Navarro county to Ft. Worth about the time of the War. They lived in a small apartment in Victory Village, housing for Air Force families and workers at the aircraft plant. After the war, they bought a little house in the new housing that was springing up.

Most people who bought the little houses, were planting some trees and fixing up their back yards for children to play or for entertaining. But not Grandma. In the spring, Grandpa had someone come plow up all of the back yard, except for a strip around the edge of the yard. Grandma planted her garden and spent every morning out chopping and tending her garden.

In the summer and fall, she would have fresh things to eat, and spent time canning and preserving for the winter.

In the drawing above, I was remembering Grandma, with her hoe, out working in her backyard garden, until almost noon, when it started to get too hot. Then it was time to come in and cook dinner. And after that, she and Grandpa just sat in their room, in the sweltering heat. I wrote about that in an older post.

She always wore her sunbonnet out in the yard, with long sleeves and those separate sleeves that ladies wore to protect their arms from the sun. Her cotton dresses were simple, sometimes with a little lace trim, rick rack, or tucks for decoration, and always with a somewhat long skirt. She wore cotton stockings and her yard shoes, galoshes, if it were wet outside.

Grandpa is shown standing at the back of the yard, pointing out things to my sister. To one side, my friend, Eddie Grace, and I are standing, talking, probably about movies and movie stars, or boys.

Grandma would show us how to pick various things in the garden and how to know if it was ready to be picked. But we had to be very careful, in case we might do something that would harm the plants or disturb the garden.

We could go sit on the back steps in the afternoon when the house made a little shade, or walk on the grass around the garden. But we knew to stay out of that garden unless Grandma or Grandpa were supervising.

Remember that, in those days, there was no air conditioning, and even fans were rare. So, we looked for shade and a bit of breeze.

Wish I could plant a seed and grow the things that I seem to eat most. Potatos and potato chips, M&Ms, ice cream, chicken, tomato soup, bran flakes. And even gasoline! And in that line of thinking, I'd like to be able to grow a money tree, too. Pure fantasy, just like a garden in my yard would be.

Seriously, though. The rising prices for everything are really scarey. It makes my head swim to try to think of how this has happened. I always thought it was a shame that we have so many huge grocery stores, packed with food. There aren't that many people to buy all that food. And in other parts of the world, people have so little and are starving. So, what happens to all this left over food? But, now, we are hearing of looming food shortages and higher prices. I don't know how much more some people can cut back on things.

Glen Beck, on tv and radio, has been urging people to stock up on food and necessities. He predicts that it is only going to get worse. We may need to all take a cue from Grandma Miles and plant a backyard garden. I'm sure that we would starve, if we had to depend on my gardening. Being a picky eater, I probably wouldn't eat what I could grow anyway.

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Saturday June 21

19th World Wide Sketch Crawl

Click on the Sketch Crawl logo at the top of my page, for more information . I hope that everyone will join in and draw their surroundings on Saturday.

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Downtown Bryan

Texas Reds Festival

Friday Evening and Saturday

I have a link to the festival below the Sketch Crawl links. Sounds like a lot of fun, and that will give Bryan sketchers even more things to draw. The 4141 locomotive is going to be parked and there will be lots of food, activity, and entertainment.

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Please share this with anyone who might be interested.

Let me know if you see something that particularly appeals to you. I appreciate your support and your comments. Most of the work is for sale. Click the contact button and let me know if you are interested in one of my creations.

Thank you to all who have signed my Guest Book and who have joined my group.

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