Great Times to Pull Weeds

Margaret Walls, LeRoy’s mother, picks cucumbers with her grandson. Garry C. Brandt grew up as a "city kid." However, when he visited his Walls grandparents they felt it their duty to allow him the privilege of picking blackberries, shucking corn, breaking beans, picking tomatoes, beans, corn and of course - pulling weeds. 

Photo by

  
Carolyn Brandt  

Written by 
LeRoy Walls 
CEO 

Right after a rain
While they’re small
When they’re big
Before they go to seed
Early in the morning
Late in the evening
When it’s too hot to do other work
When it’s too wet to put up hay
When you’re too small to hoe them
When you’re too short to pick corn
When you’re too young to pick beans
When Mom or Dad tells you to
When you get tired from hoeing weeds or
While the horses are resting

As young men, my Dad and his brother Floyd and their Dad, my Grandpa Tom Walls, were cultivating corn. After wearing down the horses on a hot day, they stopped to rest the horses under a shade tree. After they got the horses comfortable Grandpa, said, "Let’s be pulling weeds while the horses rest."

This was typical of what Tom Walls expected of his children, grandchildren and of himself.

One of King Solomon’s wise sayings was:
There are no gardens without weeds.

12/31/1999