Years ago when notebooks came in blue cloth rather than vinyl, I started keeping a garden notebook, it was in the 1970s and I listed all the varieties of seeds I’d tried plus my successes and failures in the garden. I mapped out each raised bed with what I’d planted each year and the date I’d planted each item. I was a total, devoted nerd about it, but I only had one daughter back then.

My gardens kept growing in response to the number of mouths I had to feed. Going from a half a dozen tomato plants to over a hundred this year, realizing I’d only keep us in fresh tomatoes, falling short of my goal to can enough for the winter, I did fill a freezer. My kids must each eat a dozen or so a day as I cart in bucket loads and sling them on our very long kitchen counter, finding them all gone a minute later.

Over the past several years I’ve merely shoved seed order lists and other notes into that blue binder, but now that I have more kids grown than kids still living with us, I’m starting to get a little bit of time back for intensive gardening, my original joy.

I’m asked, “How many actually live with you?” I’m only counting those that are under 18 and still in school, I have several kids now in out-of-home placements, but one of them has greatly improved after several violent years and involvement with the Department of Juvenile Justice. He’s home right now and we’re all happy about it, maybe by Christmas he’ll be home for good.

A year ago I couldn’t imagine ever being happy about that fact, we’d had the police out here too many times, he had several incarcerations, and his anger was out-of-control. His greatest success has come from an Outdoor Therapeutic Program such as this one. He’s learned a lot about himself, independence and many coping skills.

When I picked him up today another kid from our county rode home with us. This other 17 year old is basically parentless, no one really cares, and we dropped him off at an empty house. Driving away my son remarked dismally, “I can’t even imagine how it’d feel to be so alone.”

No one has ever been alone in our house, the busy-ness alone would make normal folk’s heads swim. We’re used to it and I’ve always noticed that few, if any, kids hang out in their bedrooms. Usually they are congregated in the living room, family room or kitchen, especially our kitchen, as it’s a very big, comfortable space.

Tonight two of my sixth graders went home with a friend and the remaining 16 kids are feeling their absence, complaining that it’s too quiet, anxiously questioning their return time.

So my recalcitrant son, the one who is learning slowly that we all really do love him, is starting to regret messing up the few childhood years he could have had here with Mama, knowing he can’t get those years back, yet a huge part of him is realizing that like all my other grown kids, I’m here forever. Being their mama doesn’t ever stop