Good-bye for now, old Farmer

As surely as spring followed winter and spring and summer found me in my garden, for the past 25 years I could be sure of a welcome interruption in my labors . The Old Farmer would walk up to the garden fence and say, "We need rain!" I would walk up to the fence and we would talk about, just about any thing.

Memorable was the the time one of the city campers complimented him on having such tall corn so early in the season, no one ever told that camper he was looking at elephant garlic, not corn.
And the morning he came over giggling like a schoolgirl, and proceeded to tell me that the night before he and my son were sitting on the bench and he told my son the he was "Going to drink a beer, take a shower and go to bed." Jr, who was about 3 said that he was "Going home and drink a pop, take a shower and go to bed."

In recent years the Old farmers health was failing him, it was getting hard for him to get around, his garden got smaller and smaller, and he got frailer and frailer, I saw him only once this spring and 2 days ago a few weeks short of his 80th birthday, he gave up the fight.
He hated winter and I guess that another one was just too much to face.