I met Elizabeth Taylor when I was 17. My friend Ramona told me she wanted to get veggies at the market and we went down with baskets. Elizabeth had a variety of greens set out at her table.
She looked like a wild mountain woman, she had a knife and sheath at her waist, she had bare feet and her jeans were earthed with soil. She had a childlike innocence and a quick witted intelligence and when she offered me a taste of the greens she started to translate their character as if she knew their unique personality.I was a kid and eating greens didn’t ever seem as romantic as she made it.
She took out her knife and sliced a piece of Napa cabbage, with her thumb and forefinger put the cabbage to my lips and said “taste this one, she tastes like fresh snow.” I started working for a farm and at their stand at the Moscow Farmers Market. I would see Elizabeth there across the way.
One day I was waiting tables and Elizabeth called me, she asked me to work at her stand, selling veggies with her. That day changed my life. I started going to Elizabeth’s farm.
She paid me 5 bucks an hour, so it wasn’t for the money. I started going up on the weekends and learning from her. We became sisters and now I consider her my adopted mom.
She is a curious open lover of life mountain woman. She had been gardening since she was a teen. She was 40 when I met her.
She and her husband Jeb had milled the trees from their land and built a 3 bedroom cabin next to a creek in Santa Idaho. She was prou.
