The Garden War {Overcoming the unpleasant.}

I gave myself a pep talk in my journal last night. "I'm going to be joyful while I'm gardening tomorrow. I really am." But I didn't feel very joyful. In fact, whenever I thought about weeding on the morrow, I felt sluggish, and awful and sad.

It's dangerous to work in the garden.

And scary.

The morrow dawned with an azure blue sky and the smell of freshly cut grass...I did some chores, a bit of math...then pulled myself outside.

And...

I nearly had a heart attach when the first worm slithered away from the open sunlight. I guess I have some toughening up to do.... but it's a good thing there weren't any big spiders. I would've been paranoid for the rest of the summer.

Aside from those:

There's these prickly plants waiting to stab your feet with a million tiny needles. 

I was trying to stage a rendezvous with one of those prickly plants that actually aren't prickly and just look like they are...you know...those? The ones....Well. I'll stop trying to explain. ;) Anyways: I just finished clicking the pictures when I turned around....and stepped on a real one. lol:) 

 

And there's snakes. I'm praying all last year's snakes have died off and there won't be anymore this year.

 

Not to mention the heat...and the blisters...and the scratches... and, when it rains, the mud...and, when it doesn't, the hard-packed dirt that hurts your feet.

But, in spite of these many perils...the weeding session actually turned out to be great.

 

Handy Hint: Weeding, dishes and any other job can be terrifically fun if you can manage to strike up an interesting conversation with somebody. (This truth applies to nearly everything but jogging. I abhor jogging. You can barely get enough air to breathe, let alone speak to your neighbor.)

Moral of the story: Fun hides in unexpected places. Even the most boring jobs can be made fun. Just use your imagination - and count your blessings instead of slogging through the dirt/boring hours/unpleasant situation. Pray, decide to have fun, and believe God can help you out.

 

For me, I had an awful lot of fun goofing off while we arranged the flower beds, pulled weeds and enjoyed the cool breeze that moderated the bright, pleasant, sunshine. (The "Goofing off" part was key.) In the end, I had an awesome time with my family, and the flower beds look great. (And, it just so happens, that I actually like gardening. A lot.)

Kara weeding the raspberries

Mom...also weeding the raspberries

Isaac digging up weeds.

Dirty feet. A humble part of summer. 

And now, I shall rest in the cool of our very own living room. 

Cheerio. ;) 

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The Garden War {Overcoming the unpleasant.}

Real Life and Homeschool

Life has been abundant lately. :D


There's  been homeschool park days and surprise 16th birthday parties, college sendoffs, sleep-overs, cleaning jobs, bedroom,bathroom and livingroom renovations, bridal shower planning, fall get-together planning, getting everything set so my Dad can perform my Uncle's wedding in October, my little sister's piano genius for her teacher, numerous guests that make life brighter, canning, pickling, stewing.............

The garden has constantly been calling us - every Monday, sometimes Thursdays; you're never quite sure when you'll end up in the wild jungle of dirt and sky and sun: We have two ginormous gardens that you already know about and now a third garden/farm as well. A fellow on the Menominee Indian Rezervation needed tribal workers to help with his organic farm. We offered to help him. (Did somebody say something about 150 lbs. of beans (picked) on Wednesday?)



Oh! I've just found the  letter Mr. Lingis sent about our work (though, we did call in some recruits to help us) on Wednesday. (He doesn't mention anything about the 300 lbs. that we picked by ourselves on Tuesday. I feel rather productive! lol:)

Note: "Kara" is my lightening-fast little sister (click on her blog button on my sidebar!) and "Bethany" is her best friend. (www.graceofmyredeemer.blogspot.com)


Hi,
... The day's total, 540.12 lbs.
... Kara is still the 'master picker', absolutely threshing the high powered Bethany team in the final moments before the buzzer by .21 hundredths of a lb., Kara 116.69 and Bethany 116.48
... Thanks for the very good day

Dr. Hal Lingis
Native American Organic Farms Specialist

As I said. It makes me feel productive. :D My tan is much improved, I daresay, and I think a few muscles (by the feel of them ;) have been getting stronger, too. :D We've learned a lot about all sorts of things. (I intend to write a post on those subjects soon.)


And. Oh. I started school with Rebecca on Monday. (Half started. I really started a few weeks ago, but only because she needed something to do.) I think we completed the grand total of *checks records* two days this week. Monday, actually. Why?

 

 Because on Wednesday we picked beans. On Thursday we picked beans.  Friday was park day/surprise party/sleepover day. We don't do school on Saturdays - but I wasn't home in the morning then, either.

I looked at mom and asked, "Mom, how am I supposed to get school done with all of this gardening going on?" (I know there's no help for it, it comes when it comes; and you'd better be ready for it when it does!) She looked at me and replied easily; "Anna, that's life."

When I thought about it, I realized how true it was. The goal in my teaching Becca this year is for me to learn how to teach; to become experienced in this area. "Life" has been gracious.  I'm also experiencing how the perils of a busy schedule hinder the school schedule and turn the idea of a schedule in one's own mind into a spiraling whirl. If you're not careful.

I think this is a good, practical, object lesson to us all.

Sometimes, despite the best of intentions, things cannot be helped (like gardening). In these times; when the wall is too high to climb over, to wide to walk around, to low to crawl under, we have to step back and pray; "Lord, you take control, I surrender to your perfect will." From then on, we roll with the punches because we know that "All things work together for good."

So take heart, homeschool mothers and sisters and students!

Besides all that, one young lady now has a greater understanding of what ya'll go through. :)

Happy Gardening!

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Real Life and Homeschool

Guards of the Garden

The bushy row of bean plants formed a path bespeaking perfect serenity in the full sunlight of eight o' clock in the morning.

The limberlost guard knelt carefully and patrolled, gingerly, the fertile row of damp earth in the bean patch.

 

Birds sang their sweet "Good morning"s as trees towered above the reaching briers of raspberry plants, thick tomato vines full of green fruit, stretching strawberry runners, bejeweled and bushy flowers that gracefully reached for the sky, the quiet, cool green of onions and the beautiful red in the veins of beet greens.

Beautiful? Perhaps - but not without cost.

The Limberlost Guard recalled the screams of her companion when a timid snake slid away into the raspberry patch. Stiff fingers in October, sweaty backs in July, blisters anytime a hoe or shovel was involved, rocks in bare feet, "Daddy-long-legs" on bean leaves, beetles in the dirt, worms slithering about, stinging nettle, sticker plants underfoot that force the eyes to abnormal sizes and bring groans or yelps from the throat, sore fingers, sides, feet, knees, backs - just about everything, actually.

On a more emotional side of things:

If looks could kill, that garden could shrivel up and die beneath the dark countenances that frown so heavily upon it. (Actually, we've been pretty good about not doing that. This year.)

Some guards placed on patrol in this garden, feel resigned thankfulness for a bit of quiet time in the dirt, dew and fresh air. Others, a joyful kind of quickness that pulls out weeds with a "This isn't so bad. We're almost done!" or " When we're done we get to go shopping" kind of air about them.

Some, truly would rather be "anywhere" else, while more just see a job that needs to be done.

Altogether, in this jungle of dirt, suffering, sweat, peace, danger and beauty grows the most important product: Character.

Character, dear Guards of the Garden, is more valuable than clean fingernails, skirts that have no dirt on them, skin that knows no sunburn and knees that are not permanently stained from dirt throughout the summer. Character is the only thing you can take with you when you die. Really. And. Power without character is satanic.

On that note, since character is the most valuable plant that grows in the garden, I have asked my siblings to draw a picture of what an imaginary "Character Plant" looks like. Here are the results. :D

Rebecca (6 years old) drew the one on top. The main part of the plant is a carrot "Because," said she, "A carrot looks kind of like a person - with the hair and stuff. If you add some beans for the arms and legs it looks like a person." Thus...you have a carrot/bean-character-person-plant from our aspiring young artist ;)

Kara, on the other hand, felt a little mischievous. You can see what she did for yourself... it reminds me of that verse in Genesis about how the earth would be after Adam sinned - "thorns and thistles" was one of the things it mentioned. lol:)

 First, Isaac brought me a picture of a snake - much like the one that has kept us watching for itself in the grass, woodpile, gardens and rocks. Isaac turned it into a "Character Tree" for me, though. This is his finished work. :)

This is my humble contribution to the art gallery ;)

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Guards of the Garden

It's Grown

Beans

Tomatoes

Peppers

We had to re-plant in a few places. :D

At the other garden. (Dad and Kara)

Something that grows on a vine. (We are't sure what's what without the paper on which this information is written.)

Miss Becca

Brother Ed Romberg helping us till. (This garden is at his house.)

We ended up having supper together. :) 

Time to drive!

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It's Grown

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Before transferring the started plants from the green house to the garden, we had to "toughen them up" a bit so they wouldn't die from being exposed to the cold and heat of outdoor life. So, I took them outside and put them in a semi-sheltered area where they could still experience a decent amount of weather. 

Me.

My servan- *aherkum* helpers.  (Actually, Mom is my instructor and Kara, my co-worker.)

The garden. Yes, we also had to pull out weeds as we went along. *sigh* (But, that first bunch of green is strawberries.)

How "I" kept the rows "straight." 

Searching for the name and planting instructions of different seeds. (Some had escaped their packages. Well, somebody took them out of the packages, I guess.)

The fate of young gardeners. 

A shot of the other garden. (If you look close you can see the hills wherein seeds for things like squash, pumpkin, watermelon, cucumbers, etc. currently abide. Unless the wind blew them away .) 

My other servan-*cough* "helper." 

Getting ready to water all of the hills and  the little row of peas. 

We also put down straw in the strawberries. It works as a mulch. We did this for the whole garden a few years ago and the weeding was...well, we didn't have to do hardly any of it! This year, we made the rows in the rest of the garden wide enough for Dad to fit the tiller betwixt them. It's awesome. 

Us. Minus me. :D

How does your garden grow?

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How Does Your Garden Grow?

The Joyfully Gardening's Garden So Far - A Belated Post

I'm a "lucky" girl. Y'all. Know why? Because....

My Mumsie is letting me be in charge of the garden this year!!!!!!! (Upon my request. She isn't forcing me. Just a note on her behalf.)

So, I ordered the seeds that I needed (after finding out which ones we didn't already have in the basement) and planned where I would put what out in the garden. (But I'm going to have to re-do it, since we planted a few extra things upon the desire of my mumsie.) 

Tip: Refer to  the book "Carrots Love Tomatoes" if you ever want to plan your own garden. Companion planting is a smart idea, in my opinion.

I also looked on the Farmers' Almanac to see what days were good for planting, and then PLANTED. 

I used these pellets to plant the seeds in first.

Planting tip: Wetteth the point of thine pencil and sticketh it in thy seed containereth instead of groping aroundest with thy fingernails, trying to fish out "two" teensy little black doteths. The seeds sticketh to wet wood. 

This is how the Pyatskowits (Joel Pyatskowit's, anyway) start seeds in Wisconsin! (Florescent lights, hung a few inches over the tray of labeled plants to give extra light, heating pads underneath some of the trays to give extra heat, and (in the left, bottom corner) a space heater to keep our little "greenhouse" (in the garage) warm.) 

Every morning I go out and turn the heater off, the lights on and water whatever needs it. In the evening, I turn on the heater, off the lights, and occasionally water again. 

Believe it or not, since I've started the plants it has snowed again. In other words: We have a very short growing season around here. It's a good idea to start plants ahead of time in Wisconsin.

My other plants, (beets, green beans and lettuce, for example) will be planted out in the garden when the time is right, but I started the flowers to go around the garden, broccoli, tomatoes, morning glories,  cilantro, basil and several other herbs in this fashion.

It's so exciting.  

(What the garden looked like in 2009, under mom's control. Yep. I've got a lot to live up to. :D)

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The Joyfully Gardening's Garden So Far - A Belated Post