Andrea spends a lot of time playing in the earth. She has a large garden. It grows over 100 pounds of food each year! But for this seven-year-old girl, gardening (园艺) isn’t just about fruit and vegetables. It’s about people. “My favorite thing about growing food is doing it with my family and friends,” she says.

Andrea began gardening at the age of three, when her grandmother gave her some potatoes. Grandma told her, “Don’t throw away the small ones, because if you put them in the ground, they will grow back.” Andrea tried it. When the small potatoes grew new leaves, she was so surprised.

Soon after, her parents put in a small garden. When friends came over, Andrea enjoyed sharing what she knew. And she says, “My friends helped me water and looked after the plants.”

At the age of six, she became the youngest licensed (有执照的) farmer in Georgia, the USA. Today, her garden has sixty plant beds (植物床) and twelve trees! When the vegetables and fruit are ripe (成熟的), Andrea says, “I invite people who don’t have enough food to my garden and take what they need.”

Andrea is an example to other kids, too. She speaks at libraries and schools and has a community garden club for kids.

Now, Gaby Hagler and her husband Patrick Hagler have got the special gift—four more children. On June 22, Adam, Bennett, Coby and Dane were born at 34 weeks. Before June 2022, they had three children—13-year-old Kalleigh, 12-year-old Paxton and 2-year-old Sammy.

Patrick says, “At first, we wanted to have one more baby. So, it was a little surprising when we knew that we were going to have four babies.”

It is not easy for people to tell(区分) the babies. After thinking, Gaby and Patrick have an idea. They use different colors and animals to tell the babies. Adam has a blue and giraffe theme(主题). The color and the animal of Bennett are green and the sloth(树懒). Coby is often dressed in a white and panda theme. And Dane has a gray and elephant theme.

What a big and interesting family!

It was the middle of winter some 30 years ago. I was a young father with three little children counting on me. I worked in a sawmill（锯木厂）.

As I got ready to go to work, I put band-aids around my fingers and put more in my pockets. Cutting and stacking lumber（木材）for eight hours a day had caused my fingers to split（裂开）and bleed at their tips in the cold, dry winter air.

That day at work was harder than normal. We were short-handed on workers. The machines kept breaking down. We had to rush to catch up as the lumber stacked up. On top of that, all the heaters in the building had stopped working and we could see our breath as we spent hours working there.

When the work day finally ended, I walked wearily toward the washroom, took off my work gloves, and checked my aching fingers. The splits were worse than ever and I had bled through the band-aids again. I felt so tired. I wondered how long I could keep doing this, if things would ever get any better, and why life was so hard.

After driving home, I tried to put a smile on my face as I opened the front door but instead, one appeared naturally. My daughter ran up to me, yelled “Daddy!” and wrapped her little arms around my neck. I lifted her up and my heart filled with love. My tired body didn’t feel so tired anymore. My aches and pains disappeared into her hug. And the joy in my heart chased the sadness away. At that moment I kissed my little girl’s cheek and held her tight. I knew I could continue and that things would get better.