Every weekend Mother Dear and Mrs. Cotton and us kids were at the City Market getting seeds and things.

I’d leave every time with something. A bike, a hen, lol everything but a pot belly pig she wasn’t nearby letting me get.

It’s so sad they don’t even sale animals anymore at the market! They use to have a guy vending pets all the time.

Regulations I’m sure got him shut down.

He would have rabbits, hens, roosters, ducks, EVERYTHING!

I had a Rooster his name was Lucky and he was the most unluckiest rooster I ever knew.

He ended up getting cancer in one of his claws and had to get it amputated.

So, he hopped on one leg.

He also got chased on that one leg frequently by my dog Fluffy. Fluffy was absolutely an asshole. He could have caught Lucky and took him out his misery, but he would just toy with him. Lol

Lucky also cockle-doodle-doo’d at the wrong time. Never early in the morning, always throughout the damn day. Smh

Poor thing.

Dayniesha and I had a little garden on the side of our garage Mother Dear started for us. We grew strawberries and would eat them right out the garden.

We had a stand over there also where Mother Dear and I would scale fish at after we would go fishing.

She taught us how to scale fish with a spoon, pull out all the intestines, and everything by hand.

Necessary life skills that I didn’t even know I needed but absolutely grateful for now.

She was soooo Southern.

We even had a clothes line in the backyard. I was always afraid to go over there because it’s also where she piled up logs and I just knew snakes were over there. So I avoided that area of the yard like the plague.

I played mostly in the lot next door that she owned where her garden was.

Every year she’d get it tilled and would make sure that I knew how far in the ground each seed was to go.

She’d pore over her almanac and show me how to use it and adhere to the Moon to garden and grow things. Best time to plant. Best time to harvest.

I never knew she was preparing me for a day she’d be gone. Or for times like now when the World is going upside down and round and round.

This Spring and Summer I’ll be doing the same with my sons. Fishing, gardening, foraging. For the first time ever to be Frank.

It’s time. Absolutely been time to teach our children how to fend for themselves on their own!

Get your gaming licenses from fishing to hunting.

Start a small garden with them.

Teach them how to make essentials from toothpaste to deodorant.

It’s past time.