My Mom passed away Wednesday May 27th at 5:00 am, I knew this because at 6:23 the phone rang and it was my sister.  She couldn't get it out but she didn't have to, my mom suffered from breast cancer and it spread to her bones.  She was in terrible pain and in the end it was really a blessing for her, we were selfishly hoping she would be around longer but it truely wasn't fair to her.  She had given us everything she had from life lessons to cooking lessons and she was crazy about spelling and grammar.  I unfortunately let her down on both of those.

She was delt a cruel hand for life but she raised three really good kids and she always had a smile, a laugh and strong shoulder.  She was a great cook and loved to entertain.  But what was endearing was her ability to laugh and look at the bright side of every cloud.  She lives on every time I cook tomatoe sauce, bread, meatloaf, well you get the picture.  Mom is with most of her family now, they are all probably sitting around playing cards and joking and laughing.  She had the ability to forgive like no other, a trait I am still trying to emulate.  We grieve and we miss her terribly but she wouldn't want us to morn, she was a partier and that is what she would have wanted. 

Life continued and on the same day as her death we had a contract to deliver vegetables to a new market.  We started harvesting our lettuces, kales and collards to sell; we found out after delivery that the red leaf lettuce didn't pass expectations so they rejected them.  We got alot of rain and when my mom passed we were unable to pick the fruit as soon as we liked to.  That led to an infestation of strawberry sap beetles and a collapse of our strawberry patch.  The strawberries were one of the few cash cows we had so that just added to this weeks heart ache. 

There are so many things that can go wrong on a farm, from the most horrific to a microscopic bug reaking havoc.  Going into this, we like most everyone else expected it to be hard and trying, but on the farm we are learning that know matter how much we know and try to prevent heart break is something that should be expected.