52W Mark II – Week 18: Pets

For Week 11 of the 2022 52 Ancestors Challenge, the theme was “Flowers”. However, I chose to change the topic to “Pets”, not realizing that would be the theme a year later. So here I am, stuck with little to say on the topic of pets. At most, I could write about my Aunt Diana (again!), who dearly loved her cats. Nevertheless, since I turned “Flowers” into “Pets” last year, it seems I should turn “Pets” into “Flowers” this year.

My paternal grandfather, Arie van der Fluit, was an avid gardener. He and my grandmother lived in a number of different places over the years, and at every one of them my grandfather had some sort of garden or greenhouse. Even when he lived in a condominium tower, he somehow managed to turn permission to have a small kennel in an unused area of the main floor – about the size of a banquet hall – into a menagerie of all kinds of animals, along with all kinds of potted plants throughout the place.

At one home, he tore out the grass in the front yard and replaced it with flower beds. He only left strips of grass so that he had a place to walk between the blooms while tending to them.

My grandfather was less physically able to garden in the final years of his life, yet he did not let his health problems keep him from the two things he loved most, gardening and training dogs. He put more of his available energy into the dogs, erecting an impressive obstacle course that he used to put them through their paces. He also built a small windmill in his front yard – which generated enough electricity to operate an outdoor lamp. What energy and ability my grandfather had left for gardening he put largely into potted plants. They were easier to tend to.