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Pinecone potatoes

Daybook:  Backyard.  This will take months. 

Her mother was a gardener.  Her husband is a gardener.  She loves wildflowers, butterflies and birds and the smell of good dirt and manure, but not digging in the dirt.

Months ago, the husband brought home what looked like 3" fused pinecones and left them on the dining room table, which is where they sat gathering dust, no explanation given.  They were hard and deep brown.  In clearing off the dining room one day, they were shifted to a cardboard box, out of the way.  Weeks later a thin, dark brown vine grew out of the box, exploring the cabinetry above. 

They were alive. 

She asked him, “What are these,” and he replied, “Some kind of potato.  MaryAnn gave them to me.” 

‘Rock-hard potatoes,’ she thought, 'Anything that wants to live that badly deserves water and dirt.'  She carried the 3 pinecone potatoes to the backdoor stoop to find them a home.   A large pot sat at the base of the steps.  It held beautiful loamy soil, ready to go, just her kind of gardening project.  In went the pinecone potatoes, followed by water.  The pot looked best arranged outside the base of the stoop’s steps to give it balusters upon which to start its journey.  From that Spring to this Fall, the vines with large, heart-shaped leaves made a gentle green curtain across the stair railing of the home on Popcorn Road. 

Now she wonders, will they survive the winter, what is their name, what is going on within the soil. 

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