To Be Like Grandma B

My Grandma B died this last November. It was a few days before the one year anniversary of my mothers death.  I'm sure a lot of what I am to write about could be "how to be like my mom" too, but Grandma B was one of the first people that I remember when I was very young that I wanted to be like. My first memories of her was at the house on Tuxford Street (the house that would eventually be the house that I would grow up in) when I was probably 3 or 4 years old. At that time the driveway lined with fruit trees seemed endless. The back yard seemed like a park because on the patio was a real life drinking fountain.  Grandpa's garage was so fun to explore. He had  little canning jars filled with different nuts and bolts, nails and screws and what seemed like every tool imaginable. And then their garden was one of the coolest things to me. Nice, neat little rows of vegetables of all kinds. Grandpa had an irrigation system he had installed made out of a 50 gallon drum that you would fill with water and it gravity watered the whole garden. I loved it there. It was a child's paradise. Well, to me anyway.

Grandma B seemed to know everything about nature. She new every plant and tree around. She loved horses and would often tell me about her time growing up on a ranch and her horses.  She loved to fish and sew. She played the piano. She always had on Turquoise jewelry, that I loved. I felt drawn to her I guess because I was a Tomboy and she was always outside in nature using her hands. She was a lot different from my other Grandmother who was very prissy and liked the finer things in life. Grandma B was just salt of the earth and I liked that about her.
Anyway, now I am 34 and living in rural Utah. I am trying to be as self sustaining as possible out here. There are definite challenges to living so far out in the boonies. As I do some of the things I do, like planting my garden or pruning my orchard trees I often think of my Grandma B. I wonder how she did it with 4 kids. I only have 2. And will I ever do it as good as her.