Two Women in Spring and Winter

I was a novice gardener when I met Della Kuelke. One of the best things I learned from her is how gardening keeps a person humble. At eighty something, she'd been a part of the land since a very young age. She never presented herself as any kind of an expert. Simply understood, there are infinite variables that stand in the way of knowing everything about gardening. She had hired me to help her with heavy lifting, digging, and other miscellaneous tasks.

In her younger days, she trained in accounting, and moved to Cleveland for some years. There she got hooked on the smoking habit. After retirement, she returned home to care for her mother.

Della wasn't very nice to me. She wasn't rude or anything, but for example, she'd give me the job of digging out lilies underneath a big, gangly lilac bush. This was extremely hard on the back, not to mention scraggly little branches catching in my hair after they already knocked off my hat.

I slogged on because I knew this woman had a lot of knowledge she could pass on to me. So, she let me hang around with her, as long as I did some work. She didn't pay much, and sometimes, she forgot all about paying me at all. Money comes and goes, but Della Kuelke's wisdom was priceless.

Her family occupied a piece of Northern American paradise encompassing hundreds of acres. There were some wooded glenns, but most of it was pristine, and sprawling meadow land. Our house was planted on the now adjacent acreage that was sold to my husband after Della's father died.

Usually, I'd trek through the pine tree grove, and up the hill to her house to report to work. Sometimes, I would get to visit her charming mother, ninety eight year old Maude. Riddled with arthritis, she stayed cheerful and congenial. She taught me some canning tricks, and shared some of the best recipes. (Zucchini relish to die for!) Maude had almost made it to the hundred year mark when she passed away.

On voting days, Della and I went together to the township hall about a mile away. Her eyesight was getting so bad, I'd have to be the driver. A very independent woman, she wouldn't let me help her with the doors, or stepping up into my van. One time, she got her little leg stuck on the running board, and she couldn't get it down. She let me help her that time.

We also attended gardening club where she acted as president for several consecutive years. She ruled entirely by Robert's Rules of Order, and carried a little wooden gavel in her purse for keeping order when the rest of us got too chatty.

I think our friendship thrived on plain talking, straight forward dialog. Consistently, yet gently spoken, she always gave me the real scoop. She was extremely well read, and always rational. Never married, and only a near miss liaison to her credit, she had had plenty of time for reading.

Not so long after Maude died, I noticed Della getting thin. I researched recipes for weight gain, and I'd have her over for buckwheat pancakes. She'd eat buckwheat pancakes any time of the day. I also found a recipe for a coffee drink which included whey as an ingredient. She loved this too. She put some weight on, temporarily.

All a sudden, she began passing on starts from her wonderful gardens. The most stunning of her overgrown gardens was a springtime plot of mixed varieties of daffodils. Splayed across a ridge in the side yard, celebrity assortments like shalom, dream narcissus, giants, and icicles gave off heavenly fragrances. This garden was so large that southwest breezes carried an undulating trail of fragrance five acres away.

As the farmer colloquialism would go, I was in "hog's heaven" when she passed on a big trash bag full of the bulbs from this garden. I felt guilty about taking this many, so I suggested to naturalize some of them in a patch of woods located near the road.

Later, when we went for firewood, she decided, we could take some bulbs over to the woods with us. I took my position standing up on the drawbar of her much coveted 1955 Ford tractor, and away we went. A little breeze ruffled her curly white hair as we traced the edge of the soybean field.

She had her own method of collecting wood, so I went on to my task of planting in the other side of the woods. I think she thought it was silly of me, but I literally broadcast them onto the deep leaf compost floor of the wooded glen. With a stick, I scratched the handfuls of bulbs into the loam. Then I gathered up grape hyacinth from the bottom of the bag, cast ing those near the roadside. There they could be viewed during the infrequent event of a motorist passing by.

I had so much respect for Della, and her lifetime contributions of wisdom, time, and culture. She had given a lot of herself to the community. This wooded glen would be a remembrance of her, and all she was about.

The next day, I embarked on my mission to plant the remaining and still abundant wealth of bulbs. It took me days to get them all planted, even after I shared with friends and family.

By the next spring I had a daffodil walk growing all along the perimeter of our acreage, but sadly, Della had passed away that winter. Her passing was only a few short weeks before spring.

It just so happened that the daffodil giants I planted along the ridge near the pine grove caught the sunrise in an exquisite, and indescribable glory. I could view them from the front room picture window. When I see these, I'll think of her, and that curly white hair waving in the breeze. She's on her little lady tractor, and its one of those garden memoir, springtime days.