Of milk and gardens

Seems like only yesterday the milkman was delivering our milk over the garden fence just like this when it was still dark. We didn’t have a box with a lid so the magpies often pecked through the silver bottle tops before we got out of bed.

But my recollections go even further back – to the days when the milko used a horse and cart. I remember my mother rushing out to the street to shovel up the manure the minute the milko’s horse trotted along a few houses. She wanted to get it before the neighbours. They all coveted the manure to feed the veggies in their 1940’s Victory Gardens. In my mind, this scene happened frequently. But why would the horse oblige right in front of our house so often? Just one of memory’s little tricks I guess.

April 2018