Planting SeedsMay Flowers
When I was in grade school, one year on April 30, my class made May Day baskets for the community. May Day baskets are traditionally small baskets or bags of flowers or treats that are left anonymously for friends or family on May 1.
Our baskets weren’t fancy, just plain paper brown bags full of candy, artificial silk flowers, and a handwritten note. We also were allowed to draw all over the paper bag with crayons. The next day, on May 1, our class walked through the neighborhood to leave the bags on the front doorstep of homes. Most students chose their own house or a relative’s house. Since I lived in the country, and my relatives lived far away, I chose a house at random and left my May Day basket at their front door.
The next day at school, the cafeteria’s lunch lady approached me. She was always a little bit grumpy and curmudgeonly – yelling at students to slow down when they ran down the hallway, always reminding us to “shush”, use our inside voices, and chew with our mouths closed, and she always made sure we ate our serving of vegetables. However, on that day, she was smiling as she cast a shadow looming over me, and I was afraid that I would get into trouble. She asked me if my last name was Milton, and I responded yes. She then pulled something from her apron: a brown paper bag covered with crayon drawings of flowers. It was my May Day basket! She had tears in her eyes as she thanked me for my thoughtfulness and for choosing her house to place my basket. She said she had never received one before, and she never received cards or letters from her grandchildren.
I never knew if she thought I knew she lived there and chose her house specifically, or if she was just appreciative of the gift, but through the years, she always remembered me with kindness. I always smiled and said hello when I saw her, and she was a little bit friendlier – and always gave me extra dessert.
This spring has been full of flowers – and not only daffodils, tulips, and flowering trees blooming. In April, the Cook County Farm Bureau Foundation and Ted’s Greenhouse held a Farm Shadows Program to teach students from Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences about careers in horticulture. The students were not only able to tour the greenhouse, which they described as “paradise,” but they also had the opportunity to make a planter pot, choosing which flowers and how to decorate it. Giving the students real flowers allowed them to put their creativity and thoughts into action, and they were able to take their planter home to show their families physical evidence of what they learned during the program.
The Cook County Farm Bureau will continue to blossom with upcoming pollinator events at Brookfield Zoo on May 3 and Lincoln Park Zoo on June 18. Learn about pollinators, including honeybees and Monarch butterflies, and do a make-and-take butterfly craft when you stop by Ag in the Classroom’s table at these events.
The May Day basket in grade school taught me the importance of being nice, doing the right thing, and the magic of flowers, even if they are only hand-drawn with crayons. You never know what adversities somebody else is going through, and something as simple as candy in a paper bag may make their day (or their life) a little bit happier.
Happy May Day! I hope you brighten someone’s day this spring with flowers – after all, horticulture is Cook County’s #1 form of agriculture!