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Informationen zum Autor Sharon Lovejoy, an author, illustrator, lecturer, and teacher, is the children's garden adviser to the American Horticultural Society, and has been a guest on Today at NBC, PBS's Victory Garden, and the Discovery Channel. She speaks at conferences and gardening organizations around the country. She has four grandchildren, and divides her time between San Luis Obispo, California, and South Bristol, Maine. Klappentext Illustrated with evocative photographs and the author’s watercolors, Camp Granny shows how to do 130 activities that connect grandmothers and grandchildren through nature. Vorwort Illustrated with evocative photographs and the author’s watercolors, Camp Granny shows how to do 130 activities that connect grandmothers and grandchildren through nature. Introduction “It is as grandmothers that our mothers come into the fullness of their grace.” Christopher Morley The bower of jasmine beside my studio is cloaked with snowflake-white blooms. Its scent stops me mid-stride and pierces my heart, as only scent can do, with memories of the two beloved women who changed me forever and for good. My grandmothers, “Nonie” Clarke and Grandmother Lovejoy, were the first and most profound blessings of my young life. In their loving presence, I felt as though everything I talked about, accomplished, or experienced was important. They may not have approved of or understood some of my actions, but they never overlooked them. Instead, they offered words of encouragement or perhaps guidance to a better pathway. I knew that they always had time for me no matter what was happening in their busy lives. My first home was nestled into an orchard in my Grandmother Lovejoy’s garden just steps from her cottage. Gnarled apricot, guava, fig, and peach trees skirted with jasmine and dianthus leaned toward Grandmother’s house with outstretched limbs, as though in an embrace. I spent the first seven years of my life running the hollyhock-flanked trails between Grandmother’s home and mine. How could I have been so lucky? A grandmother only a few steps from me and always ready to explore, read, have faerie tea parties, garden, cook, and talk with me about the mysteries of life. We approached every day together as an adventure, filled with the simple joys and discoveries that are fresh and new to a child and that can also make a grandmother feel fresh and new again. At age two Moses is a fearless nature boy who uses all his senses—especially taste—when exploring. Some days we worked silently, side by side, absorbing the beauty and sounds that surrounded us. I learned that silence can be as deep and instructive as conversation. Only by being silent could Grandmother teach me to tune in and really hear the high bzee-bzee whistling calls of the cedar waxwings that frequented her garden. “All things have a voice,” she said, “but most people don’t take the time to stop and listen.” My Nonie lived only a few miles from Grandmother’s house. Nonie and my grandpa visited us every Friday without fail. Nonie and Grandmother loved each other and delighted in their weekly visits. While Grandpa worked on innumerable odd jobs, we puttered in the gardens, played old-fashioned board games or cards, made secret gifts for family and neighbors, and cooked. When the three of us were together, we laughed and played like girls. The garden faeries have a kindred spirit in Sara May, who leaves gifts and letters for them in her mailbox. Now I am a grandmother, and it is one of the truest and purest joys of my life. The traditions, stories, cooking, gardening, arts, and patience of Grandmother and Nonie stream through me and eddy around the eager young children who fill my life with light. Whether we are picking berries or storytelling, I feel an invisible current of connection to the grandmothers who >came before me. Though that connection is invisible, it is...
