Take Care....

Most of you know that as a business, I "buy out" estates.  Professionally I guess it would be an estate liquidation service.  Anyway, yesterday, I was going thru a box from an estate I recently acquired and found this old paper magazine called "Rural Progress Magazine" from April 1935.  I LOVE reading old papers and magazines for recipes, household hints, animal and agriculture tips and of course the ads.  Anyway, I found this cute poem that kinda goes with this Spring season:

Take Care of Young Animals

Give livestock babies the very best care,
For the colt of today will soon be the mare.
Though wobbly and weak the little calf now,
In two years' time she'll be a great cow.
The lamb which are frolicking down on the green,
Become sheep overnight - or so it would seem.
The wee little pig you could put in a hat
Is a hog at six months, or just about that.
If you want your livestock to be what it should,
Don't ever neglect it in its babyhood.
 By:  Rudolph Spires Allen                                                            Cute....or at least I think so.

How true!  If you want anything to "grow to be what it should, don't ever neglect it in its babyhood."
This applies to everything:  plants and flowers, gardening:  too many times I've said, boy I wish I would have weeded earlier!  Animals, like the poems says, proper care and nutrition make a much healthier and happier "product."  I think this is especially true with children.  "Babies don't last", "enjoy them while they are young" "little kids little problems, big kids, big problems"  -  has anyone else heard these quotes, or maybe it's just a Wisconsin thing.  I know one thing, it's alot easier correcting a toddler than a teenager!  A wise mother will "tend to her little garden of children"  and motivate and encourage them, shower them with praise, even "prune" off the unwanted shoots with discipline.  If you start out with these ideas and principles when your kids are little, keep up with it while they grow (this is not always easy and neither is weeding in the hot sun), the rewards of your efforts with show in what you "produce (fruit/veggies)."   Will your garden be perfect, will you have a Grand Champion blue ribbon winner, will your kids be straight A honor students - maybe not.  One thing I do know - the time and effort you put into any of "IT" will not be wasted!