Seamus and Fall Colors

Last week I harvested all my zinnias because there was a risk of frost, and I didn't want to lose all the marvelous color before I had to.  The colored glass in the South window showed off the zinnias quite vividly in the Fall afternoon sun.  Seamus and I had a little photo shoot just for fun.

Dear little corn cob

After a long hot summer of watering and weeding and watching, perhaps my favorite thing to harvest is sweet corn.  On the BBQ.  Fresh off the stalk.  Still in it's husk.  Mmmm.

This week we are told our dear little one is the size of an ear of corn, inside my uterus that has expanded to the size of a soccer ball!!

Dear little corn cob, we already love your little ears.  We love to watch and feel your movements (even when they're keeping me awake).  We are happy to watch your silk ripen, and wait for that cold Winter day when we get to meet you face to face.  We all love corn, but not as much as we already love you.

What a wonderful treat to harvest, prepare and enjoy sweet corn grown in our own backyard!  What a delight to be so intricately connected to the process of growth from the very beginnings of a tiny seed, to our growing family's table fellowship.  What an honor to know you before you become the fullest You.  To know you while you're still a part of me.

24 weeks.

What the Garden Grows

 This Spring I was far too sick to keep on top of my garden.  But I managed to toss some seeds in the ground, and we have all delighted in the growing things in our yard....even the weeds.  This year it really feels like a "hobby garden", with barely enough produce to feed ourselves, and sometimes not quite enough.  But what I love most of all is seeing the boys enjoy it, and begin to understand where our food comes from.

Autumn Colors

Last week I cleaned up the garden - and just in time!  The frost hit really hard the next evening, and everything would have been toast.  I brought in seven bell peppers, a bowl of tomatoes (a bag of green ones are still reddening up in the pantry), a crisper full of carrots, a dozen pumpkins, and seven cucumbers.  The last harvest.  In some ways, it really saddens me to say, "The last harvest", because I will miss watching my garden grow, and I will miss eating fresh garden produce.  But alternately I feel a little relieved to have it all cleaned up and gladdened that we got through a successful season, and now get the rest Winter necessitates.  Oh how hard work pays off: in fruitful harvests, and glad rest.

Lost and Found Luke Says

I found this list of Luke says, looked back on the blog and was astounded I hadn't published them!  What's wrong with me?  These are adorable!

Derek: You're putting words in God's mouth.
Luke: God telled me when I was in Mom's tummy that babies can't have wooden toys.

What is that in the world!?

Vests are tummy jackets.

Go to your Mom now, Seamus.

Dad, maybe we could give Seamus away at a garage sale so he doesn't do a lot of damage and make me share my toys.

I only want to share my toys with people who can say a lot of words like "please" and not cry.

No, there is too much; I sum up.

We are:
eating bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin in a whiskey cream sauce
drinking summer cream whiskey (we had a lot of whiskey to enjoy...so we are!)
playing in the sprinklers, pool, hose...basically any water we can get our hands on.
weeding flowerbeds and vegetable boxes
walking down the dyke for an ice cream cone
laughing with Auntie Sarah
riding bicycles without training wheels
sitting on the breezy front porch watching other people ride bikes without training wheels
enjoying watching lilies blooming
visiting friends near and far
baking for Celeste and Ayrek
kissing the baby with gusto when he says, most adorably, "Ah-yo" (hello).
practicing yoga
wondering if we live in a dream... green grass, hot air, growing things galore!
dreaming for the future

Warm Berry Days

We went berry picking.  My shoulders are now as red as our berries.

Some of us ate more than we picked.  Others enjoyed catching toads more than hunting for strawberries.

One of us stained his outfit so badly that it will most likely end up in the rag pile...red!

The pile of hulls was greenly gratifying as a result of using my new pinchy tool.  Very little berry lost to the knife!  It's true what my Dad always says, "Use the right tool for the job".

Now for some jam.  This is one recipe that never disappoints.

Turning

The garden is full of so many wonderful metaphors applicable to life.  And death.

On Good Friday we began to turn the compost pile.  It took a couple days because we hadn't done it in a while.  It looked like such a towering rat's nest!  I finished pulling out the lovely black stuff at the bottom Saturday morning, tossed the rest of the decomposing material back in the bin and closed it up again.  It was really hard work.  Heavy lifting, shifting, carrying the compost to its new home and digging it in.  I was sweating.  Sweating and thinking.

It is so rewarding to harvest your own compost!  All that delightful black soil that I am feeding my garden with this year, was our kitchen garbage last year!  I find myself hoarding scraps in the kitchen to add to the pile because I love the freeing process, I love the end product, so much.  Linus does his part too.  He sniffs around the bottom of the box and finds any tidbits that may still be tasty and takes his teeth to them.  Then we toss them back in!  Last year our compost pile grew two heavy-yielding tomato plants - pro bono!  The compost bin gives back, abundantly.

The more you turn the compost, the better the decomposition, and the more harvesting you can do.  My goal this year is to turn the compost once a month.  That doesn't sound like much, but we turned it once last year and we got a good six inches (maybe eight!) by four feet squared of compost this Spring.  In my life, the more I turn the better I get too.

I've been feeling bad about how often I have to apologize to Luke for losing my patience with him.  I lose my cool, I shout, I get angry, I send him to his room in tears, and then I make myself turn and apologize.  It's become a pattern.  A pattern I have been ashamed of.  Then one day a few weeks ago I got impatient with Luke climbing all around inside the car while I was waiting to buckle him in.  Luke lost it first, and screamed at me.  I had a few choice words to say, but I held my tongue and before I could get angrier I got into the driver's seat, and took a few deep breaths.  Shortly, I heard a sniffle and a quiet, "Mom?" from the backseat.  "I'm sorry I screamed at you," Luke murmured.  I was so surprised I could barely choke out, "I forgive you".  My three-year-old has never apologized under his own steam.  Not until this moment, anyway.  It made me pause, and I realized that all of these times when I've been so ashamed of losing my temper, I did something right.  I apologized.  And my son's heartfelt apology is proof that we can learn from somebody else's mistakes.  I have to keep turning.  There's more to harvest.

The great thing about compost is that dead doesn't mean gone, or useless, or even sad.  After you finish that delicious, juicy cantaloupe, you put the rind and seeds in the compost bin and a few weeks or months later you find the most healthy, warm, black soil in the entire world, just waiting for you to plant something new in it.  Yes, perhaps you wish you could eat it again, if it was that delicious.  But the memory is savory enough to last a long time. Or perhaps it was moldy before you got to it and nothing good came of it in life, but in the compost bin it can find a new cause!  You might even get a surprise and find that one of the seeds has fallen just outside the bin and sprouted all on its own, volunteering a new, fruitful vine!

Three days after we had a wonderful Easter dinner with Derek's grandparents, celebrating Jesus's resurrection, Derek's grandma died.  We enjoyed her company Sunday, alive, smiling, talking, eating.  We talked to her Tuesday, while she lay unconscious and nearing death.  We saw her Wednesday, an hour after she breathed her last breath.  We saw her Thursday, dead, and in a coffin.  Sunday we buried her.  We enjoyed knowing Grandma, Great-grandma to our sons.  We sometimes regret that we didn't know her better.  Like me, she enjoyed gardening, and I think she would appreciate being compared to my compost.  I am sure Grandma turned plenty in her life: apologizing, repenting, forgiving, loving.  I didn't know her that long, only ten years out of nearly eighty-five.  And the last few of those years her dementia really got in the way of our relating to one another.  But I know she loved Jesus, I know she prayed, and I know she loved people and did her best to love them like Jesus does.  She did a lot of turning, had a really good life, and death is the last turn before the harvest.  We literally get to be dug into the ground after we die, left to decompose in the earth for Jesus himself to harvest when he returns to make a new creation!  How lovely is that metaphor!?  We will have new life - no!  We will BE new life, made from the old, made from the turning and turning and turning and turning.

This I believe.  Praise Jesus!
         

Putting on the work boots

I moved some plants around last weekend and the boys played and played in the sunshine.  I was surprised how long Seamus stayed happy in the playpen: nearly two hours!  Luke was more enamored with the box that the sand toys were in than with the sand toys themselves!  And I got to dig around in the dirt a little.  The volunteer spinach is up and some of it is even ready to be picked.  The weeds are doing spectacularly, of course.  And the lawn looks fabulous after Derek de-thatched it.  It's going to be a great summer.  I have energy, and ideas, the children are so content to be outdoors, and we've got an early start on the yard work.  I'm planting carrots this weekend!!

It's not just a camera, it's

a Powerhouse.

a Machine.

a Member of the family.

Not for wimps (seriously it's heavy!).

My pretty.

the Black beast.

a Thoroughbred.

Fun.

Sexy.

Full-frame, heavy-duty, mega drool, super cool, not-simply-awesome-but-totally-stellar new piece of equipment.

 

Here's what it does right out of the gate, with a Nikon 16-35mm 1:4 lens, no retouching.

With no more introduction:
 

Only one light on to my left!!  6400 ISO!!! I think I hear angels singing.

Me at my desk in the office.

Fat naked baby.  Yes, dearest darling, you are fat.  We love it.

 

halloween carrots

We had a crazy wind last week that ripped the sweet peas off the fence, and the towers came down for safe-keeping.  All that's left in the garden is carrots...and volunteer spinach.