Category: Kate Gridley

It is an unusual nursery school conversation. A teacher and I kneel down to where my son Charles holds his latest rendering of our family in his four-year-old fists. Four figures, one very tall (John), two medium sized (Charles and me), and one exceptionally small (the little brother), stand in front of a tall house with four windows and a front door.

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Moby Dick the woodchuck is back.

No, he is not an albino woodchuck. He just keeps resurfacing. At the moment, he looms larger than life in my tiny garden. I analyze the damage in the morning, raise my fist, and mutter epithets toward the sky — though he’s a groundhog. There’s no question I’d like to shoot him, but I can’t. We live in town.

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When I was a child, we planted the entire vegetable garden at once, over Memorial Day weekend. Finally it was warm enough to start thinking about planting, and it was a long weekend.

Warm enough, you ask? Indeed. I am talking about 45 years ago when there could be snow in Connecticut in May. Frequently there were killing frosts. So Memorial Day weekend was not only family time, for being together and honoring those who had made sacrifices for our country, but it marked the true beginning of the summer growing season.

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