Photo Challenge Day 24: My Magic Garden

Published on Wednesday, October 24, 2012 by Katherine

On Iron Chef, the chef often requests the judges eat a dish in a particular manner in order to fully embrace the taste and meaning of the plate. Today, this Iron Blogging Chef asks you to hit play before you begin to read this post, in order to better appreciate the words on your pallet.

When I was young, we had an album recorded by the Limeliters called “Through Children’s Eyes.” I actually found it on CD as an adult, making these old Limeliters songs an important part of my own children’s memories.

Sadly, the cd is scratched beyond repair. Yet I can still remember every word and every tune, sung both alone as a child and in a duet with each of my own.

One of the songs describes a child who had his own lollipop tree in the back yard. I remember singing along, dreaming that this tree must somewhere exist in the world.

“I sat beneath my lollipop tree
And looked up with a grin
And as I opened up my mouth
A lollipop popped right in”

Little did I know that the small garden my young daughter and I planted years ago held a very special secret. A secret it kept to itself until this very year, when my girl and I discovered something beyond our wildest dreams.

In our garden, you will find no lollipop tree, but rather something even better. For there, under my aging dogwood tree, there now grows a rare and spectacular M&M plant. And today my friends, it was time to harvest.