Zoom in on the picture to see Grandma’s Johnny Jump Ups in the yard.

When we went to the farm on Wednesday to mow, I backed the tractor off the trailer and headed to the road end of the yard to start mowing. As I turned off the drive and into the soft, spring green grass I saw a sight that stopped me in my tracks. I turned off the tractor and just sat there, admiring what lay before me.

A whole yard full of Johnny Jump Ups. I can remember as a very little girl, picking handfuls of these little treasures and bringing my bouquet to Grandma. She would pull out a tiny cup and carefully place the flowers in water to enjoy till they wilted away.

I could hear my grandma’s voice as plain as day.

“Don’t you mow down my posies, pet!”

It made my heart hurt. Grandma led such a simple, yet rich life. She’d had a hard row to hoe. The middle child of three, she lost her mom when she was nine years old. Her little brother had just turned five when their mom died. Her dad was a difficult man and made their lives pretty miserable growing up. He had a string of wives he picked up along the way to “mother” his children. The only one I knew was his last wife…Grandma Pearl. Grandma loved her, but she was already grown with a family of her own when she came along.

Take a really close look at Grandma’s old house and you’ll see it was cheaply made before the depression. Upgrades were made along the way and she eventually got indoor plumbing and a bathroom. She always said this house was like the Taj Mahal to her after the places she’d had to live over the years. She nurtured ever flower and plant on the place and often brought cuttings home from friends and neighbors to expand her gardens. 

West Virginia has an abundance of wild flowers that take your breath away and one that Grandma treasured was the little violets she called Johnny Jump Ups that covered her yard. The grass would grow long and thick before they finally faded and she would finally allow my Uncle Bob to mow. As I sat there looking at her beautiful flowers, I pulled out my phone and took a picture. Even the iPhone 13 Pro Max with its incredible camera couldn’t do that yard justice.

Finally, I sighed and apologized to my grandma for cutting her pretty posies. I know she would be bitterly disappointed, but we need to “make hay while the sun shines” around here and we were right smack dab between rain storms. There was a lot of work to be done so I turned the mower back on and went on with the job at hand.

“I’m so sorry, Grandma. I took a picture…and I’ll always remember you when I see these pretty little posies.”

?

“The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.”

Song of Solomon 2:12 ESV