This week, I was talking with my daughter and we were whining about the arrival of heat and humidity in Texas. I don’t complain often, but when I do it’s to my daughter because she’ll make me laugh about it, or she’ll straighten me out.

I didn’t venture outside much in May and when June rolled around I could feel a slump in my wellbeing. Being outside getting dirt caked underneath my fingernails is a large part of my DNA, so remove that and a large part of Barb goes malnourished.

My Daddy grew up on a farm with 10 brothers and sisters, so he was always outdoors. To see Daddy you’d question his race because his skin was the color of sweet tea, which is all I saw him drink. He worked in a hosiery mill down the street from where we lived and maintained the machinery, so Daddy was called a fixer.

Daddy could fix anything and taught my brothers to maintain their cars and rebuild engines, or transmissions, so it wasn’t surprising to see him take up gardening. The farmer meets the fixer is a recipe for success, so when he retired from the mill, he constructed green houses in our backyard and that was the version of Daddy I grew to love. Some of my best childhood memories are time spent in those greenhouses.

This week I’ve stepped outside every morning and spent time in the yard, but here’s a few things I do for it to be enjoyable. I go out early, preferably before the sun arrives in the yard and if it’s cloudy, even better. I wear capri pants, or lightweight jeans to keep my legs covered because mosquito’s created the slogan, “Everything is bigger in Texas”. I spray my arms and ankles with Murphy’s Natural Mosquito repellent and mosquitos stay away for hours. Even Hill Country Water Gardens sells this product.

My neighbors have never seen me wear a pair of shorts because if I’m outside my skin is covered. I have the ability to tan just like Daddy did, but we’ve come to learn that’s not good for our skin. I now realize why Daddy stayed in those greenhouses from dawn until dusk. When the farmer meets the fixer he teaches a little girl everything he learned while working with plants and she becomes a gardener for the rest of her life.

Photo by Heather Gill on Unsplash