Virtual Farming

I am a virtual farmer.  My internet farm is beautiful and prolific.  I even have a beautiful and prolific farm overseas.  Being a successful farmer has always been a goal of mine. 

My ancestors have always been farmers.  They didn’t have the acreage of farms that you might have seen as you drove through the Midwest.  They were more the kind of farmers who grew enough to feed their families.  There was always plenty for the neighbors who may not have had a good corn crop that year.  There was always plenty to “put up” in jars and plenty to put in the freezer to get us through the winter.

When we were children, my grandmother would put fresh vegetables in baskets and my brother and I would walk up and down the neighborhood streets selling vegetables – tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, green beans, peas.  We would walk for miles every day and loved it.  The neighbors would see us coming and get out their home baked cookies and fresh squeezed lemonade.  We were pretty adorable. When we found out that Grandma Kramer was letting us keep the money from our sales, we became even more adorable.  There is little that sells better than “adorable”.

Something else that was noticeable when we ate only the fresh vegetables that we grew in our garden, was that we were seldom sick.  No colds, no flu.  Our skin was clear and our teeth and bones were strong.  Those were the days, my friend.

My mother can grow anything.  She takes seeds out of a store bought lemon, pokes them into a little dirt and in no time at all she’s picking lemons.  When my husband and I are in areas where there may be food indigenous to only that area, I’ll sneak a seed or two into my pocket.  We think we’re putting one over on her.  She’ll never be able to grow this.  Ha!  Pokes it in the dirt.  Couple of weeks go by and there’s a plant.  Whenever someone gives me an indoor plant, it goes directly to her house.  I know, however hard I try, it will soon have to be buried in the trashcan to be picked up on Tuesday morning. No inherited green thumb for me.

My devoted husband has plowed many a garden for me.  We have bent over planting seeds.  Made little sticks with the seed packets attached so we would remember what it was we planted.  We watered.  We hoed.  We weeded.  We hung tin pie plates around the garden to keep the critters out.  We shouldn’t have bothered with the pie tins.  The little critters stood next to the garden shaking their little critter heads.  They knew scavaging in this garden was futile.

A few years ago I worked part time for a retail outlet that sold silk plants.  I knew silk was going to be my savior.  It wasn’t.  Even the silk plants looked less silky when they were in my hands.  They’d get dusty.  I’d take them outside and wash them.  Leave them in the sun to dry and that was the end of the silk plants.  I can’t even claim to have a silk thumb.

Then I discovered Virtual Farming.  This is heaven.  I plant.  I reap. I sell my harvest to my friends.  I claim rewards for doing a good job. I can even rotate my crops without government assistance. There are cows, chickens, pigs and horses that are so well behaved I don’t even have to clean up after them.  They breed, with very little help from me.  My flowers are as beautiful as any you’ll see in the botanical gardens.  I am finally a farmer.  I look at my hand and see the answer: I have been blessed with a virtual thumb.