Old Order Mennonite Memoirs

Being shackled with velvet chains to my garden doesn't hurt. In fact, usually I never think about being bound. But last week I remembered. Instead of chains, however, which would never budge, I thought of them as rubber bands. They stretched and let me go when I moved away from my gardens, but since they were still around my ankles and even my heart, I bounced back again, hopelessly and willingly fettered.

On Monday I picked shell peas and got soaked by the dripping plants. I picked sugar peas and strawberries and cut heads of cauliflower and broccoli. I pulled weeds in my asparagus patch.

On...