Unser Garten Hat Kein Gras

It was 1989 and we were visited by my Dad-in-law’s cousin, Lida, from Russia.  She was a sweet old Mennonite lady that had survived the Soviet Union. With Gorbachev’s new policies of glasnost and perestroika she was finally able to visit her Canadian relatives that had managed to escape the communist country in the 1920’s, before the doors to such immigration had slammed shut.

Lida had been accompanied by her son plus three other local relatives.  Her son, Valerie, spoke Low German, Russian and a bit of English.  Lida spoke Low German and Russian, my in-laws spoke Low German and English, my Lovely Wife understood a bit of German and I had C minuses in high school French.  The conversation around the table was a series of translations.

Our Stella sweet cherry tree was producing very well that year and at the table we had coffee, a pail of cherries, plus chocolate cake with ice cream and fudge sauce. Valerie declared that he had never eaten cherries before.  I believe the cake and ice cream was decadent as well.

The old lady wanted to see my backyard and we walked among the different fruit trees and vines and vegetable beds.  She liked my young Montmorency sour cherry tree and ate them even though they weren’t quite ripe.  We couldn’t quite communicate other than a few German words that I’d picked up from my Mennonite cooking lexicon.  When we got back inside, she made a point to tell me, “Unser garten hat kein gras.”  The others translated it for me: “My garden has no grass.”

These were people who had known hunger.  They didn’t have the luxury of a lawn.  Every available space was cultivated for food production. Could this be where we are headed as well today?