Tater Garden in Two Pan

Welcome to Pioneer Fridays in Two Pan

Bricker Spinrad, my esteemed spouse, isn’t a farmer.  He came for the gold.

Our first winter in Two Pan was so cold, Bricker attended church just to hear about the fires of hell.

We wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for the Miraculous Abandoned Tater Garden.

This was unsettled land, and I don’t know when or how spuds w planted, but when we claimed the land,  under dead stalks hunched in a forgotten corner, I found taters. I grabbled them out of the dirt, and wintered them  in a gunny sack in a pit. (The pit and the privy were the only digging Bricker’s done that isn’t prospecting.)

Neighbors, who we hadn’t even met,  brought deer hindquarters over, too. That’s the manner of people who’ve chosen to settle here, rather than fish gold flakes out of the creeks (like my esteemed spouse, Bricker).

The Good Book tells us, we reap what we sow.  But I know for a fact I’ve been reaping that which I did not plant in the way of food and friends.

Now, each September when I harvest, I toss the littlest spuds back in the dirt and take the extra big spuds to neighbors and strangers.  My thanks to the mysterious, kind soul who did the same thing for me.

I keep telling Bricker we never know, when and how far down the line,  the kindness we’ve left behind will be discovered.

   Bricker just mentions something about gold and a cold day in hell.