llustration by Istockphoto.com/Freelancebloke
When I was very young, I remember my grandmother’s frequent trips to one of the few “health food” stores in Houston (which was a far cry from Wholefoods) to buy her organic carrots…. She drank so much carrot juice that her hands and feet turned orange. We got a good laugh out of that. And of course, what was left over from the juicer went into her compost pile.
Grandmother was a writer, and when the gardening bug bit her, her literary focus turned to writing about organic gardening. She didn’t have the benefit of the internet to do her research, so most of it was done in her own backyard laboratory…oh, Grandmother would have loved the internet! Most of her articles were published in Rodale’s “Organic Gardening” magazine. When she ran out of backyard to put in more planting beds, she and my grandfather moved to Brenham where she had several acres to indulge her obsession. Before long the two of them had a huge organic Herb farm with a mail order business and a following from around the world. One of her last writings was a book “Onions, Leeks, and Garlic” from the Texas A & M university press…
If that wasn’t enough to keep them busy, they had a successful antique business called the “Yankee Peddler” to attend to as well…recycling at it’s finest!
Both grandparents came from frugal German stock, and to waste anything, including time, were not to their liking. Customers that wasted my grandfather’s time by “just browsing” were given special consideration on pricing…an up-charge!
This photo from The Calvert Hotel reminds me of their shop.
