The Garden has Been Started...
When my computer is on, there is a bar at the top of the screen that gives me the date, time and current temperature. It is 82 degrees right now. If I place my cursor on the bar it has a window that pops open to show me the temperature to within the nearest tenth of a degree, the temperature with wind chill figured in, the wind direction and speed, and the times of today's sunrise and sunset.
It's a handy little feature, and one of the most used on our computer, next to checking email.
But 82 degrees.
So gardening has begun, and so has the pay off. I am being paid off for my hard work AND for my lack of hard work.
In the last two summers I've been building raised beds over most of the garden. This is the first spring when I've been able to plant potatoes during the same week as St. Patrick's Day. My garden has trees on the south side, and it doesn't get enough sun to dry out the soil for early planting. Raised beds drain more readily, and the dirt is perfect for planting. That is the pay off for hard work.
Last summer, the garden became depressing. I wrote about that. Dead tomatoes, etc. By fall, I harvested what was out there, but I did not do the fall clean up. The tomato cages are still in place with their tomato skeletons rattling in the wind. Remnants of corn stalks are stark in contrast to the verdant deep green of lush henbit covering the ground below.
There were two beds that weren't covered by henbit---the last one I'd constructed, which hadn't had time before frost to get a lot of weeds started, and the one that had the sweet potatoes and the last live squash. Those late plants had kept the bed pretty weed free until frost.
The squash bed currently has a tall cattle panel down the center with snap peas planted along both sides. Next to the snap peas, filling the area of the bed on either side, are two rows of plastic milk jugs covering tiny broccoli plants. It looks like I'm trying to raise milk jugs. :-)
At the south end beyond the cattle panel is the area where spinach is seeded. Around the entire bed is fluffy gray fuzzy stuff held down in the wind by a sprinkling of dirt---the contents of my vacuum cleaner bag. I'm hoping this combination of pet fur, human hair (mostly mine) and other people smells will keep the rabbits at bay.
The new bed has a small area of onion plants. The rest of the bed is divided between red and yukon gold potatoes.
I bought too many potatoes for seed, though. I had to clear another bed. Not to worry. I need the exercise. Here is the pay off for lack of hard work. First I use the field hoe to scrape off the henbit with as little dirt as possible. I carry that to the wheelbarrow for compost. Then I hoe the soil that is left as deeply as that field hoe will go. Lastly, I pull up the soil along both sides of the bed and rake it smooth, reforming it. Very hard work. But the dirt is so lovely, that it is also very rewarding work.
I got half of one cleared and planted the white potatoes.
I'll be clearing the rest of the beds slowly while listening to knitting podcasts on my mp3 player.
With the daylight savings time change and the warmer weather, gardening is cutting into knitting time, which is strictly kept to evenings and weekends. If I allow myself to knit during the day (except when waiting at appts, etc.) it will be too easy to lose control of how much time it gets.
The white sweater is coming along. I had to rip out some of the shaping because the sweater's hips were floating a couple of inches above mine. I've fixed that. I'm noticing that the back seems slightly short so I'm experimenting with adding some short rows to the back. I just got a book (Knitting Workshop) that is mostly about common sense in knitting by Elizabeth Zimmerman. The book includes directions for making up your own patterns, and points out that when you knit sweaters all in one piece, you have to allow somehow for the fact that you need the back to be a bit bigger than the front---thus short rows. Fortunately she explains how to do them, so I did my first short rows this morning. (Yes, it was morning, not evening. It was also Sunday, and I was watching Brene Brown on PBS before going to church.)
I need a new small project that requires little thought to take with me to meetings, etc. The sweater is at the place where lots of decisions must be made about bottom edging, sleeve shaping, etc. It is also pretty large and imposing by now. After I finish writing this post, I'll look through some of the patterns I've bookmarked and see if there is something I can start from yarn I have collected.
Brene Brown...shame is evidenced in perfectionism. If I can just be perfect, I will always be loved and never be ashamed.
Our sermon this morning was about Nicodemus, the Pharisee leader, who spent his life being perfect and was thrown off his game by Jesus. The way to the kingdom of heaven was through being born again---not through perfect compliance to the law. God loved us so much, valued us so much, that he gave his only son---before we were perfect.
God is the truth. If God values us this much, we are indeed valuable/worth loving.
Perfectionism will not get us into the kingdom. It will make us judgemental and ashamed and ready to measure ourselves against those around us to see whether we are closer to or father from the kingdom than they are. It will make us set up rules to make us feel safe: doing these things will get me in; doing these things will keep me out; I do the right things and there is nothing to worry about.
Getting into the kingdom is about accepting God's assessment of us, about being honest about who we are, and about trying as much as we can to be like Jesus.
Honest
I especially enjoy when science verifies the truths of faith, and illustrates them in new words. It goes back, I think, to God's and our enjoyment of new things. We love to hear the old truth through new ears with new words and new understanding. The same yesterday, today, and forever, and new every morning.
It's a handy little feature, and one of the most used on our computer, next to checking email.
But 82 degrees.
So gardening has begun, and so has the pay off. I am being paid off for my hard work AND for my lack of hard work.
In the last two summers I've been building raised beds over most of the garden. This is the first spring when I've been able to plant potatoes during the same week as St. Patrick's Day. My garden has trees on the south side, and it doesn't get enough sun to dry out the soil for early planting. Raised beds drain more readily, and the dirt is perfect for planting. That is the pay off for hard work.
Last summer, the garden became depressing. I wrote about that. Dead tomatoes, etc. By fall, I harvested what was out there, but I did not do the fall clean up. The tomato cages are still in place with their tomato skeletons rattling in the wind. Remnants of corn stalks are stark in contrast to the verdant deep green of lush henbit covering the ground below.
There were two beds that weren't covered by henbit---the last one I'd constructed, which hadn't had time before frost to get a lot of weeds started, and the one that had the sweet potatoes and the last live squash. Those late plants had kept the bed pretty weed free until frost.
The squash bed currently has a tall cattle panel down the center with snap peas planted along both sides. Next to the snap peas, filling the area of the bed on either side, are two rows of plastic milk jugs covering tiny broccoli plants. It looks like I'm trying to raise milk jugs. :-)
At the south end beyond the cattle panel is the area where spinach is seeded. Around the entire bed is fluffy gray fuzzy stuff held down in the wind by a sprinkling of dirt---the contents of my vacuum cleaner bag. I'm hoping this combination of pet fur, human hair (mostly mine) and other people smells will keep the rabbits at bay.
The new bed has a small area of onion plants. The rest of the bed is divided between red and yukon gold potatoes.
I bought too many potatoes for seed, though. I had to clear another bed. Not to worry. I need the exercise. Here is the pay off for lack of hard work. First I use the field hoe to scrape off the henbit with as little dirt as possible. I carry that to the wheelbarrow for compost. Then I hoe the soil that is left as deeply as that field hoe will go. Lastly, I pull up the soil along both sides of the bed and rake it smooth, reforming it. Very hard work. But the dirt is so lovely, that it is also very rewarding work.
I got half of one cleared and planted the white potatoes.
I'll be clearing the rest of the beds slowly while listening to knitting podcasts on my mp3 player.
With the daylight savings time change and the warmer weather, gardening is cutting into knitting time, which is strictly kept to evenings and weekends. If I allow myself to knit during the day (except when waiting at appts, etc.) it will be too easy to lose control of how much time it gets.
The white sweater is coming along. I had to rip out some of the shaping because the sweater's hips were floating a couple of inches above mine. I've fixed that. I'm noticing that the back seems slightly short so I'm experimenting with adding some short rows to the back. I just got a book (Knitting Workshop) that is mostly about common sense in knitting by Elizabeth Zimmerman. The book includes directions for making up your own patterns, and points out that when you knit sweaters all in one piece, you have to allow somehow for the fact that you need the back to be a bit bigger than the front---thus short rows. Fortunately she explains how to do them, so I did my first short rows this morning. (Yes, it was morning, not evening. It was also Sunday, and I was watching Brene Brown on PBS before going to church.)
I need a new small project that requires little thought to take with me to meetings, etc. The sweater is at the place where lots of decisions must be made about bottom edging, sleeve shaping, etc. It is also pretty large and imposing by now. After I finish writing this post, I'll look through some of the patterns I've bookmarked and see if there is something I can start from yarn I have collected.
Brene Brown...shame is evidenced in perfectionism. If I can just be perfect, I will always be loved and never be ashamed.
Our sermon this morning was about Nicodemus, the Pharisee leader, who spent his life being perfect and was thrown off his game by Jesus. The way to the kingdom of heaven was through being born again---not through perfect compliance to the law. God loved us so much, valued us so much, that he gave his only son---before we were perfect.
God is the truth. If God values us this much, we are indeed valuable/worth loving.
Perfectionism will not get us into the kingdom. It will make us judgemental and ashamed and ready to measure ourselves against those around us to see whether we are closer to or father from the kingdom than they are. It will make us set up rules to make us feel safe: doing these things will get me in; doing these things will keep me out; I do the right things and there is nothing to worry about.
Getting into the kingdom is about accepting God's assessment of us, about being honest about who we are, and about trying as much as we can to be like Jesus.
Honest
- about being worthy of love
- about being imperfect
- about making things right with those we hurt
- about that those around us are just as worthy, and no more/no less imperfect than we are
- seeing the worth of those around us and investing in it
- compassionate
- truthful
- willing to not be safe in our love for other people (that one may be a bit controversial)
- willing to set boundaries
- no you can't sell in the temple
- right now I need to be alone to pray instead of being with more people
- you don't get to ask to be first in the kingdom
- etc.
I especially enjoy when science verifies the truths of faith, and illustrates them in new words. It goes back, I think, to God's and our enjoyment of new things. We love to hear the old truth through new ears with new words and new understanding. The same yesterday, today, and forever, and new every morning.
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