Today was the 16th Anniversary of the passing of my Grandma. I think of my Grandma all the time and on days like this I am reminded of the good memories in my life that she was a part of. My earliest memories of her are from the time she and my grandpa had a dairy farm in the upper Yakima Valley. Now years later certain smells and foods flood me with warm memories. The smell of fresh brewed coffee early in the morning, when I was little, it was the first thing I would smell in the mornings when we visited the farm. I remember always wanted to wake up as early as possible so I could go out for morning chores on the farm. There was also something new to see. Sometimes there would be baby calves to bottle feed or give hay too. I used to like to chew on the alfla pellets that were kept in a huge wooden bin. Visits in the summer meant long warm days playing under the trees in the side yard. There was a large tree stump that hosted tea parties with a tan teddy bear and grey elephant, who slept in pink rubber bunk beds with hankerchiff blankets, and served as a base for hide-in-go-seek or king of the hill. Every year there was a large garden to explore and sample green beans, pea pods or pick berries and eat them warm from the sun. I remember sitting on my grandma's lap while she rock her red rocking chair and sang songs. My grandma could whistle so sweet in the mornings while listening to music my grandpa played. I have tried all my life just to make fried potatoes as good as she could but never quite getting it right. I never saw my grandma wear anything besides a dress, though I know she wore pants at least one time cause there's an old black and white photo of her wearing a pair of overall's and cutting wood for the stove. She sew her everyday dresses out of calico and wore calico aprons that covered most of the dress. I had gotten some scraps of calico from her once and added them to a quilt I made for my first baby. My grandma loved babies, if you were a baby at any point and time in her life, you were probably at one time held in her arms. She could calm a fussy baby with in minutes just by putting it to her shoulder. My grandma loved flowers and gifts of flowers. Anytime we visited and went for a walk, we always came back with a bouquet of what ever flowers were currently in bloom along our walk. My grandma loved to read romance pocket books and could make candy with eggs whites. The photo above is my grandma when she was about 16, decades before I knew her.