A Garden Tour, Part Final

There's so much in my mind and heart to write, yet so little.

Someday maybe all my thoughts will come back in coherent sentences instead of random ramblings I think of like taming kittens and how that compares to our showing God's goodness to children.  Thoughts like James and Paul talking for hours about their experiences with Jesus.  I hope I can see a video of that someday.

And like how my little nine year-old gardener/farmer got to experience his ultimate dream last week....seeing the largest pumpkin at the state fair.  Over 1200 pounds is what I've been told.  I've also been told the goal is to grow his own next summer.  It requires basically a swimming pools' worth of water a day to accomplish.  And taking out our side yard.  Hmmmm.

So here's the young farmer's garden this year:

This is a tunnel leading into a teepee.  The tunnel is made of wire grid with yard long runner beans

growing over it.  And birdhouse gourd vine taking over.

One of the only times I've felt like a good mom is when the kids and I bought the wire and poles and I took them out to the parking lot and hoisted them onto the top of the van, secured them, and drove home.  I was proud.

Walking stick kale

Last night we sat on a hill and watched thousands of swifts at dusk fly into a chimney. As we waited for them to circle into bed, along with a couple hundred other people, I joked to my husband that he should get up and preach.

He looked at me and said, the swifts will do the preaching.

And so might the pumpkins, and the kale and the birdhouse gourds....speaking to our humanity the intricate wisdom and creative authority of our Creator.

Jam-Making Miracles

We snagged the morning yesterday to do some strawberry u-pick.
It took under an hour to fill up nearly five buckets.

The berries sat on the counter all day.  I dreaded the moment I would dive in and start the jam-making process.  Mess, chaos, frustration, a hurting back...I could see it all (because I've done it before)!

I've been praying, though, this past week or so, for the wisdom to bring out my children's potentials, for the ability to create order, for focus, for clarity in breaking projects down into small, doable parts.  These are skills I seriously lack; they make me stress and panic and sweat and yes, sometimes scream.

After dinner Brian took off for a meeting.  I knew it was time.  I brought everyone in from playing in the perfect evening weather.  We put on aprons and I started delegating.  It was about 7:00.

I put three cutting boards on the table with a container of strawberries at each spot.  A large pot and a compost bucket sat in the middle.  The potato masher went into the pot.

One helper stayed in the kitchen and helped me measure sugar, get containers, stir, mash, and wash.  The kitchen helper rotated as stem-cutters finished their containers.

By 7:50 the strawberries were jam, nearly all the dishes but the last were clean, and the table was tidy.
We even had time to read The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher by Molly Bang, thankful the Strawberry Snatcher hadn't come to our home!

Brian walked in at 9:00 and said "Wow."

He knew, more than anyone else could ever, that a jam-making miracle had taken place.

Never, never, could it have happened by myself...only God can give skills and wisdom in organization to someone who just doesn't have them.  He hears and He answers prayer.

Though the evening had a brief moment of frustration, I could see God there with me, helping us, encouraging my heart, and so I give Him praise.

A Mother's Garden

As a girl I watched my mom haul buckets of water through the pasture all summer after they planted those lilacs.  I fell in love with them then.  Her hard work showed me the importance of beauty, fragrance, life.

Just recently she tells me about her gardening day with her mother.  They worked out in the driveway island planting dahlias and my grandma shares a memory of her mother planting dahlias.

There's May Day, still rich in my mind, my little body trying to hide after placing flowers on my grandparent's steps, knocking, and running to shelter.  My mom taught me that, too.

Now she has a rock garden down at the orchard and a beautiful entry garden in the driveway of her home.  Her life works life, fragrance, and beauty. 

They got their ears pierced together!

I plant sweet peas.  My neighbor comes over and tells me of his mother and how she always planted sweet peas.  We give him bouquets all summer, reminders of his mother's life.

My mother-in-law, she teaches us much about flowers, gardening, planning.  She grows her own sweet peas, rhodies, lilacs, fuchsias, geraniums, tulips, daffodils and so much more.  Her life gives fragrance and beauty.  She tells of her grandmother's influence in her love for gardening.  

Now she takes her grandchildren to buy packets of seeds and starts and pours over seed catalogs with them.  

I take my own children to the lilac gardens.  They won't let me miss a year. Each has his or her own lilac bush to tend and watch grow.  

They make their own May Day vases for the neighbors, running and hiding.  They dream of plants and gardens and birds and bugs.

Because beautiful mothers bred a love of beauty, life, and fragrance.  

Thank you, Mom and Connie...you are indeed gardeners of the soil and of the soul.

Exposed

 It's the season of birdsong.
As the birds fly through or settle in, they bring their voices and delight my ears with their natural calls.

The other day as I was out jogging I stopped to watch one that caught my ear.  I think I have the call down as well as I'm able...cheeep, cheeep, cheeep, cheepcheepcheepcheep, ahgggggggcheep!
I laughed each time I heard the ahggggg!

The great thing about early spring is that a large part of the time I can also SEE the bird. The trees are not full of leaves yet and if I look, I can figure out which bird is singing the song.

I travel back in time this week, trying to feel the passion of it all.  Jesus hailed king as He came to Jerusalem. The disciples knowing this was a dangerous mission...following Him though they thought they might end up dying with Him.

He'd told them over and over what was going to happen:

"We are going to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law.  They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified.  On the third day he will be raised to life!"  Matthew 20.18,19

So clear, yet the tree was covered with foliage and they could not really see.

It was dark, so dark, as they followed Him into Jerusalem.  He was preaching to the people in the temple courts, raising Lazarus from the dead...and the climate was dripping with suspense.

He knew.  They didn't.  They had heard the song, but couldn't see the source.

Fears became reality and Jesus was arrested, accused, tried, condemned.

He was exposed, hung near naked, flesh torn open, elevated for all to see.

In that clearness of exposure I have a choice to see Him for who He is.

God.
Made man. 
Choosing to save humanity from ourselves.

My response, "Yes, expose me, too, Jesus.  For who I really am: soul-stained with sin, body full of fault."

"Cover me, wash me, clean me with Your powerful grace and mercy."

"So that You become exposed in me, too.  My words a song of hope, my life a clear reflection of Your peace."


photos:  third annual trip to Daffodil Hill; this time precious friends joined us

Library Find Friday For Children: Nature Books

For this issue of Library Find Friday I'm looking at a few nature books.  I'm not sure if books on nature help us enjoy nature more or being out in nature helps us enjoy books on it, but either way, they really enhance the natural experience.




This beautifully illustrated book, I Call It Sky, by Will C. Howell is a worthy read.  In a poetic tone, each page explores an aspect of the air.  Breezes, snow, rain, fog, wind, storms are all covered twice as in the first pages they are explained, and in the last pages, they are experienced by the children in the photos.

The vibrant illustrations and beautiful words inspire joy in the world around us.

I know about the quiet summer air because I can see the still flowers resting on green picket stems.

I know about a summer breeze because I can hear it stirring the leaves nesting in the branches.  I like to listen to the secrets it whispers to me.




I Celebrate Nature
by Diane Iverson 

We all loved this little book.  There are just a few words per page, but they are sweet words...

I love to chatter with the birds

and watch them fly up in the air.

I help the puffballs scatter seeds

through meadows broad and far.

The illustrations are by the author who is a specialist in drawing birds and animals in North America.  For this reason, all of the kids here loved the book.  The illustrations are amazingly detailed and absolutely worth losing yourself in for a while.  This book will be on the drawing table when we sit down to sketch nature!



Crinkleroot's Nature Almanac by Jim Arnosky

What a fun find!  This book appeals to all ages and is packed full of nature information in seasonal order.

As I've looked through this book I've seen where the kids have gotten various ideas like planting popcorn.  I have popcorn plants on the kitchen windowsill and Rals just realized they're ready to transplant but the outside weather isn't ready for them....what a great learning experience!

There's inspiration for leaf booklets, information on animal tracks, games to play, pictures to find, puzzles to solve...all with guidance and direction from Crinkleroot who was "born in a tree and raised by bees."  That's right!

Apparently there are at least 12 more Crinkleroot books but I haven't read any of the others yet.




The Bumper Book of Nature by Stephen Moss

I saw this book at a museum bookstore and wrote down the title...checked it out at the library and then Conner requested it for Christmas from his grandparents.  It is beautifully and simply illustrated.  Included are pages of identification, activities, crafts, caring for nature, lore, and much more.  Some activities include having a snail race, cooking fiddlehead ferns, making an old fashioned quill pen, and making elderflower cordial or fritters.

It is organized by season and also by location.  If you're looking for nature ideas, this is a great book to check out at the library!


Have a nature book you'd recommend?  Please leave the title in the comments.