Good morning, Rural Sprout Readers, 

Are you a mom? Are you celebrating a mom? Are you honoring the memory of a mom? 

Today is Mother’s Day, and mothers everywhere will be waking up to breakfast in bed, or flowers and a marvelously hand-drawn card, or getting a phone call from older kids and grandkids. 

I lost my mom to cancer seven years ago, so while I am enjoying the company of my own kiddos, I’ll also be thinking about my mom. 
 

 

She loved flowers. Every spring and summer, our yard was graced with beautiful yellow daffodils, cleomes almost as tall as me, lilies, pansies, and petunias. 

And every summer, she would put in a vegetable garden. And every summer it would be neglected in favor of the flower beds.

 

I always found it kind of funny that she would go through the trouble of sowing seeds and purchasing nursery starts. We all knew full well that those tomatoes and beans were destined for neglect; any vegetables that came out of my mother’s garden were true survivors - experts at self-sufficiency.

And yet she was hopeful; she planted those vegetables every year despite the previous year’s failures. Looking back, I admire mom’s perseverance and hope.
 

 

We have plenty of great new pieces to read this week over at the blog. But here are a few that I’m sure you’ll find interesting.