My Love for Flowers

I have been fairly well-occupied with packing the last week and have not had a lot of time to enjoy the last of the early summer flowers on the farm. But I needn't worry because each day

Mother makes sure the house is filled with fragrant blooms essentially bringing the outdoors inside for me to experience. Her enjoyment of the gardens is a joy to watch and made me realize where I learned to love flowers.

The first time I visited Alasa Farms, was when I was still in college at Colorado State University, and Griff invited me to spend some time with him one summer. I still remember my wonder at having gardens filled with flowers, enough so that cutting some to be enjoyed indoors was not only possible but expected. It seemed a little like I was a character in a Jane Austen novel, cutting blossoms, carrying them to a garden sink, where a wonderful selection of vases were arrayed on the shelves above, just waiting to be selected.

This was a new experience for me since our Colorado gardens had always served a more practical purpose and were never abundant enough to allow for indiscriminate harvesting for indoor decoration. So I had never seen the joy my mother and I share for wandering through the gardens, basket and clippers in hand, selecting blooms that won't be missed but can still add such brightness to a bedroom or the kitchen. It is so much easier to do one's work when surrounded by the beauty of flowers.

Much later, when Griff and I were finally married (that is a story for another day) and I moved into the farmhouse, which I had visited all those years before, one of my greatest pleasures was the abundance of flowers for cutting and that is something I will miss.