This is my tenth A to Z Challenge. My first was in 2013, but I missed 2021. This April I am going through the alphabet using snippets about my family through the generations.
I managed to scan a few pages of the old album before they crumpled. My father wrote on brief descriptions. In the fall of 1948 I was two. My sister Pearl would be born in December of that year. One of my favorite activities was playing in the dirt. I remember watching the neighbor mother fuss at her little daughter, who was about my size, for playing in the dirt. Even at that time I thought that was sad. There were two sets of stairs, one on each side of the porch, so people did not have to walk through my kitchen when they came out of the back door.
It is indeed sad when children are not allowed to play in the soil. I remember making sand cakes and decorating them! 🙂
~Ria
I’m not sure my grandchildren played in the dirt much, come to think of it.
One of the most satisfying pastimes, and a lifelong source of pleasure. Staying at home during the pandemic restored it to me. I love the sequence of photos showing you still enjoying the same activity. And I’m glad you were able to scan the photos from the old album. (Someday, after the Challenge is over, I’d like to ask you what kind of scanner you recommend.)
I just used the scanner on my hp printer.
I really miss having a garden at this house. It’s so wooded.
All the photos in this post are brimming with life. Like you, I grew up playing in the garden. My grandfather encouraged us to get one with the soil–best way to grow strong, he’d say.
Even now, whenever I feel out of sorts, all I have to do is feel the soil.
Lovely, lovely post. Thank you Krsitin.
Thinking of how I can organize some gardening space in my yard now.
Oh how I loved digging in a sand box…perhaps with just dirt! But there was the box made by my proud dad, with sides and corner seats which I never sat on. You had to get down at dirt level. Such loving photos your Dad took of your activities! And I’m glad to see you were gardening still in 2006. I’m back into a flower pot garden at this stage of life.
I’d still be gardening if I had a spot.
I was always and still am get your hands dirty in the mud kinda girl!
You are right, what a pity your neighbour didn’t share the same mindset!
Stopping by from A-Z,
Dream
https://thedreamgirlwrites.wordpress.com/2023/04/07/farbe/
Very sad. I wondered whatever happened to that little girl who must now be in her 70s.
Like you, I loved digging in the dirt — or riding my bike through it to kick up clouds of dust (the bane of my mother’s existence for the dust that collected on my clothes!). Love the gardening photo…I need to get out into mine pretty soon 🙂
There wasn’t too much dirt to ride through on Detroit’s sidewalks in those days. Luckily, I guess.
My kids couldn’t play in the dirt because we had lead in it (not enough for the EPA to remove it but enough that we couldn’t grow root vegetables!). At the preschool where I work, we have a dirt pit. It’s a large area under an enormous oak tree that is just dirt. The kids can dig to their hearts’ content and get filthy, but boy, do they have fun!
That’s terrible about the lead. If it was so bad you couldn’t grow root vegetables and your children couldn’t play in the dirt – they should have removed it!
The big oak tree with the dirt you preschool kids can freely dig in sounds wonderful. That free dirt is so much nicer to dig than the caged sandbox kind. Although any is good!
Soil is in your blood – I hope you can organise a digging place soon.
Blogging AtoZ at https://ballau.blogspot.com/
Me too!
It’s so important to be able to play in the dirt!
Fenning’s Fairy Alphabets
I agree!
Getting down and dirty in the garden or yard is part of the fun of being a child. My grandchildren are big fans! a pouring rain? Roll in the mud. Why not play at being an archeologist. Being clean all the time can be boring. Here’s hoping you manage a new garden, however tiny.
Seems to be less and less of it done these days. Sad.