When I was little, I was surrounded by gardeners. My mother learned from her mother, and my grandmother from her mother. My grandfather would drive an old Kubota and forever maintain the rock walls on a small farm the family had in Westport, MA. We spent all our holidays on the farm. Thanksgiving was definitely a favorite of mine growing up. All the cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends and acquaintances took treks with the pack of dogs down the long winding driveway to the pond, just so we could traverse the rickety-rackety bridge. We kids would hop the stone walls, dodge cow pies, and race to the water’s edge in search of treasure that had washed up. I remember my cousin Milicent once found a sea horse completely intact. What a day! On the way back up to the house, there were often ripe pears dangling from the trees. I was just big enough to climb up and collect a few each time. My first tooth was lost whilst blissfully biting into one of those pears. Thinking about it today, it was an idyllic setting to lose a tooth: sun low in the sky, pears dangling in the dimming light, and me, perched on a boulder below, bleeding from my mouth, pear in hand smiling from ear to ear.
