In the deepest recesses of my heart, I will always be a farm girl. Though I left the farm, went to college and have not yet been back, that setting for my youth has long colored the person that I am. I mark the year not by months or even the typical seasons, but by planting and harvest, calving and branding, rodeo and State Fair. ‘Tis the season of planting and calving and with that come some of my favorite memories of my mother.
My mom was a generous and brilliant soul. She was intelligent, thoughtful, creative and kind with a heart big enough to hold all sorts of animals, people, plants and pet projects. She was an excellent cook and worked as a teacher for 20 plus years, but her heart was always outside with the living things.
Mom loved springtime with the lambs, calves, kids and kittens that came with it. She was unfailingly understanding when I drug a baby goat or bum bunny to the house, knowing full well she would be the one to care for it. Every year I managed to kidnap (pun intended) a goat kid off of some poor nanny that had one too many, drag it to the house and let it grow to maturity wreaking havoc on her gardens and deck she lovingly maintained. Mona Schlagel may have been frustrated, but she loved the animals almost as much as I did, no matter their destruction.
It occurred to me when I was in my early teens that MOM was the animal lover, she just blamed it all on me. She loved all the little fluffy things and the folks around us knew that, bringing her any number of scrawny kittens they’d found in old barns or racoons in hay they were grinding for feed. She took them all, nursed them to health and sent them on their way. When I left for college I saw an “opportunity” for couples needed to raise monkeys that would be trained as service animals. Upon hearing my suggestion that she volunteer, she finally drew the line. “I am NOT RAISING MONKEYS.” It still makes me laugh. I truly thought she’d want to do it.
Professional landscaping was as futuristic as the Jetson’s to Mom. Instead, she collected plants and trees from neighbors, even hauling them home during trips she took with Dad. She once brought home what she thought was the prettiest ground cover, only to discover it was Creeping Charlie and spend the next 10 years trying to kill it. Her gardens were full of pretty things that bloomed and brought a little sweetness to the South Dakota prairie and she shared generously. Every time I step into my backyard and see her iris, lemon lilies and other unnamed green things, I think of mom. All I need is a goat to completely destroy them only to see them pop back up, resilient as any South Dakota pioneer, the next spring.
One of the favorite things mom used to say about spring was that everything was black and green. Like many of the things parents say, I didn’t really think of it when I was younger. Now, working in Iowa and driving those rolling hills along the Big Sioux River every single day for 25 years, I know what she was talking about. Iowa terraces their fields on the hillsides and the dark, rich soil that I assume came from some fertile glacier plowing through is striped against the green grass terraces, accenting the black and green landscape as far as I can see. Those rich ribbons mark my morning and evening drives for a few weeks every spring and I’m just a little bit sad when the crops start to pop up and obscure the beautiful black soil. I look forward to every spring as a fun season to remember my mom. She was correct. In spring, everything is black and green and for just a few short spring days, it is perfect.