Spring Storm

It's been such an unusually hot Spring (again!) that even the appearance of a few clouds and the thought of rain can be refreshing. So when we get thunder, lightening, wind, rain, hail and a funnel cloud...well, my day is made.

Thursday evening, it went from 100 degree miserable to 25ft. visability in about an hour. Absolutely beautiful lightening, strong winds (trees uprooted all over town-see above photo) and then a brief downpour. I spent an hour running around the garden tieing up tomatoes that were blowing over. My neighbor even yelled at me to get back in the house as I was valiently trying to save my plants.

(what's a little lightening when spaghetti sauce is on the line!)

The yard was a mess in the morning ...

....and the fence in our sharecropping garden blew over, but overall more exciting than frightening....I love storms!

Recite Daily

Showing grace when you are the victim

 makes forgiveness when you are the perpetrator all the more likely.

thanks Wendy!

This is What's Really Important...

The rest is just a nuisance.....and I'm sorry I let it distract me.

Sam and his best friend Christobal left today for San Jose, then on to Fort Benning GA tomorrow. 

 I miss him already.

A thought

Just because we don't attack, doesn't mean we don't have ammunition. 

Life....sometimes it just plain sucks.

I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. SO many moments where I know if I could go back and change the way I dealt with a situation, I would. Hurting people because you are hurt is just easier, it's what we do, it's a normal reaction.....but it's completely wrong (bummer).

Yesterday I had the uncomfortable pleasure of being talked to by God. Seriously. Of course he took the form of our pastor Jim and his talking was the Sunday sermon, but it was absolutely directed at me (I'm not entirely sure what the rest of those people were even doing there ;)

From Romans 12....

Bless those who persecute you; bless and curse not. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

And just to make sure I was listening, within an hour after coming home from church, we had our first test. I think I passed...but just barely. Despite having been covered in scripture to deal with the situation, I found myself once again being hurt and wanting to hurt back. I resisted the urge to throw rocks, I held my tongue when I could have criticised, but I found myself getting defensive when confronted with my past. Especially when it was a fairly inaccurate picture.

I have no trouble (well, almost) taking responsibility for what I've done. It's painful to be forced to remember unattractive behavior on my part, but it's necessary to deal with it and move on. However, I have an even harder time (ok, it's impossible) when asked to apologize or make amends for things I absolutely did not do. I am completely stumped. What is my 'Christian self' supposed to do when I'm blamed for things I DID NOT DO (that's me yelling). Do I apologize? Do I just let it go? Or do I (with voice raising) defend myself and in doing so pretty much call the other person a liar? I chose option 3 (here's where the 'just barely' comes in).

I have a sense of fair play and justice that is, at times, counterproductive. Dealing with a friend or relative who has injured you is much different than presenting a case before a jury (where I would surely win:). I need to learn to separate the two.

How important is it to be right, to be vindicated? Is peace worth sucking it up and just letting people think the worst of you (which in this case they will anyway)? Isn't doing the right thing what counts in the end? But what if you're not entirely sure what the 'right thing' is? And what if there is a third party involved, someone you love dearly who is caught in the middle?

All I have at the moment are questions, I pray I get some answers.....soon!

...to be continued.

I'm not bitter

It's been a long week...

...or two.  I'm glad I have pretty flowers to look at.

ps. I love you Mom :)

For My Brother Tom...

Who says the Army.....

...doesn't have a sense of humor :)  

Click on the photo to enlarge it....and thanks Mike!

New Home!

...for the chickens :)

It's not their permanent home (and it's actually the old compost bin) but we needed to get them out of our bedroom; it was getting pretty cramped (not to mention smelly).

They love having access to the garden, at least for the moment. Once we get the next wave of crops planted they'll have to settle for a bit less freedom. They're pretty voracious eaters and will gobble up (pun intended:) anything in sight.

For now they are doing a great job of composting the last bits of winter crops and fertilizing the garden for future plantings.

Pedro SO wants to get in and play (aka eat) the birds. 

I Drink for Garden Art

It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it :)

Potatoes!

Kind of like hunting for Easter eggs in dirt, or bobbing for apples in dirt, or finding buried treasure (in dirt) or....you get the picture. For folks with little (aka no) knowledge of how to grow potatoes, we haven't done too bad.

Tho the plants have gone from lush.....

 ...to dying in the last week as a result of - weather/disease/insects?   

We won't get nearly the crop that we thought we would.  I've already pulled up several plants that had died with loads of little (marble sized) tots on the roots.  I think we will be doing some research as to what went wrong before we plant again next fall.  And I definitely won't be doing the straw thing again.  I'd rather just dig in the dirt :)

  

For the record....the straw was how we decided to 'hill up' our potatos.  Pototoes grow up from the original spud along the trunk of the plant and have to be covered as the plants grow as light causes the spuds to turn green and become toxic.  Many people recommended planting shallow and using straw to mound over the plants as they grow.  By using straw (so the theory goes) you don't have to dig in the dirt to get to the potatoes.  But we found NO potatoes growing in the straw, just a few (tho very nice) in the dirt.   Not sure why it doesn't work for us but it was messy and kind of a pain anyway, so we will try another method next year.

The Reason I ALWAYS have Dirt under my Fingernails

We've FINALLY started our farm project in our lovely neighbor Joyce's yard...Yippe Yahoo! We have been digging and building boxes and amending soil for days now. We are still a bit behind in posting the results but check out (some of) the progress as we turn this unused back yard into a dream garden (at least in my mind anyway:)

Making Jam...

...successfully (a first)

I haven't made really good jam in....well...ever. I did make a plum paste several years ago, but that ended up being thrown away, and I've never even tried making strawberry jam. My past efforts have made me a bit skittish about the possibility of ruining perfectly good fruit, so I was quite tickled that it actually worked!

(amazing what happens when you follow directions :)

It set up well (which I was worried about) AND tastes great (and I don't even like strawberry jam) I even managed to get a discount on the strawberries because they were a day old and getting smushy (perfect for making jam). I ended up with 8 jars of jam and 2 bags of frozen fruit (future smoothies) for $10....yeah!

ps. Happy Earth Day

Strawberry season is here....Yippee Yahoo! 

 Someday I would like to be able to say that we grew these ourselves.  For now I can at least say that they were harvested 3 blocks from our house.

Brad came home for Spring break and helped himself to the bounty....and we're thinking of naming this kitty 'Polly' because of his shoulder-sitting habit.