Yes. Old guys (and mature gals) can make an incredible difference.

So I have been thinking about what advice I would give Tad Retz, the young artist featured in Fine Art Tuesday.

Steven Hanks

I had decided to tell him (if he asked) that no image is more evocative to me than to see a mother in a garden with two or three of her children. It really doesn't matter what they are doing. They could be pulling weeds or thinning the carrots or picking green beans or berries. Likely the youngest isn't really helping, he is eating whatever the other three are picking.

Hans Dahl

To me, everything is "right" about that kind of picture. It is the circle of life. It shows humans and the environment engaging in a dance-of-peers and each treating the other gently. It is how humans passed on culture and technology before paper and ink existed.

Images like that resonate in primal, atavistic ways that are deeper and truer and more compelling than our intellects. 

So imagine my surprise when one of my internet friends sent me a treasure-trove of pictures of that very thing today.

In the text he told me that he had been approached by a long-time business associate and friend. The friend said "Things are getting crazy. I want my kids and grandkids and great-grandkis to know how to grow food here in southern Nova Ruritania. Just in case.

My internet friend has been doing exactly that for fifty years. He has grown vegetables and many species of farm animals in Nova Ruritania and done it as a business. He, too, has felt the temperature rise and the pulse-rate speed up. He agreed to give the entire, extended family a crash course on growing food in their unique climate and soils as long as they agreed to participate in his HANDS-ON methods.

Alas, it did not occur to my internet friend to take pictures until the end of the class, i.e. harvest.

I asked him if he could reach out to the patriarch and ask if I could post the pictures he sent me. To my surprise, the patriarch whose family received the hands-on crash course agreed to let me post them as long as I didn't use any names or mention any location more specific than "east of Scotsbluff, Nebraska and north of Huntsville, Alabama".

With no further ado and in no particular order....

Kids caring for younger siblings is a time-honored tradition in the garden.

Harvesting tomatoes ahead of the frost...and a sugar beet?

One of these guys is my internet buddy and the other is the patriarch who had the foresight to inoculate his clan against future chaos, tumult, tempest and storm.

I cannot imagine a more perfect picture. Tad Retz...are you reading this?

End of season means harvest. Obviously, my internet buddy is a good teacher and the students put in an A+ effort!

That kid now knows where carrots come from and he probably thinks they taste pretty good. They taste like "Victory!"

Another million-dollar image

And another million dollar image. Who said you shouldn't beet your kids?

Getting ready to spike it in the end-zone.

Another perfect picture of a "Mom" and "Kids". These are real people living life to the fullest.

It is like every player who stepped up to the plate hit a home run, one after the other.

Look at the grins on their faces. This is food that is even better than what they see at Piggly Wiggly...and THEY grew it.

This picture is "OK"

This one is fabulous! All you see are elbows and pony-tails.

And this one too!

Good photo, getting down to the kid's level

Busting with pride...good pride...earned pride.

Toiling away in the background. Not showy. Not forgotten.

 

Lots of moving parts. This family is going to do "OK" and it gives me hope for the future.

We can do this.