Self-Reliance

So as part of my calling at church these days, I'm teaching a class on self-reliance during Sunday School.  You always hear people say that they have a calling or a speaking asignment or whatever because they needed to grow from it, but I have to be honest--I don't generally feel that way. I do, of course, feel I get some benefit from the service, but I guess I'd really rather get along without that particular growing experience.  I don't know. 

It's doubtful whether anyone else is getting much from this class, but this time I am growing in leaps and bounds.  Last week the topic was physical health.  I spent three weeks paying attention as I was preparing and lost 5 pounds.  That's me benefitting.  This week:  gardening. 

I've tried to garden before with occasional success, but now I feel the heat.  If I'm going to tell people to plant a garden, I better do it myself, and if I'm going to tell them how to do it, mine better be successful.  So last week I did this:

The kids and I started seeds, which I am determined to nurture along until we transplant them in the garden. 

The thing about gardening is that I really enjoy doing it.  It's the time it takes to do it regularly that gets me.  And gets my poor plants.  I'm trying to remedy this by one:  putting the kids on the job.  Raelynn and Miles are getting old enough to like the empowering feeling they get when I give them control over useful tasks like this one.  I am admittedly a person who struggles with giving up control and have the audacity to think I can do it better myself.  But the more hands on deck, the better our chances.  Two:  making as much of this self-regulating as possible.  That means I'll have the lights over the seeds on a timer and I'll have to get an irrigation system in place as well.  That's the biggie for me.  But I'm loving this class because it keeps me on task.  Here's what we did this weekend--

Raelynn for all her sign throwing was the biggest participant.  She watched eagerly the whole process of repairing the frames, and dug right in with the shovel, rake and her bare feet as we made the special mix of peat moss, vermiculite, compost and--yes--steer manure.  She watched me mark off the spaces carefully, her garden blueprint in hand, and generally enjoyed the whole thing.  Miles put down the basketball long enough to come plant some peas in his box, and Paige did her usual stuff in the house.  In case you're wondering what her usual stuff is, I mean things like this--

And things like this--

She's four and a half now, and I thought we'd kicked the whole writing on everything phase a couple of years ago.  Paige is bringing it back with a vengence.  She's also taken sharpie to the dishwasher and red pen to my purse.  I'm not even going to go into her experimentation with what things scissors will cut.  She did participate, however, in the kitchen garden by helping me plant these--

I've had fabulous success here with basil before and am adding thyme to my list this go around.  Nothing better in the summer than some fresh mozzzerella, tomatoes from your garden and basil you picked right there. 

So that's been my week.  I sure miss mom's greenhouse and her tomatoes.  Her homemade pickles, not so much.  But the wide-mouth frog joke she told while pickling, that I wish I could hear again.  No matter how old I get or what I learn to do, she always stands like a giant in my memory and I feel I will never match her.  I spend plenty of time attempting to channel her in my daily life, but darned if I don't still feel twelve.  It's something to work toward, anyway, and I'm feeling pretty good about my work this week.  Hopefully next week I'll have little baby sprouts to show for it!  Makes me want to sing out loud, greenery does.

2010

So this year I think I'm going to really post, at least the basics of what we're doing, so I have the record.  I get bogged down with the idea of people reading what I write, but since it's been a few months I'm probably pretty much alone in cyberspace.  So I'm not going to try to be very interesting--I'm just too lazy and too busy.  But I'll have the record.  Funny creatures, aren't we, that we want that record, as if recording it makes us something other than the little ants we are.  I'm under no delusion that my life is in any way unique, but you know, it's uniquely mine. 

So here's a few pictures from Knott's Berry Farm.  We went the same weekend as Grandpa Black's funeral.  It was a strange experience for me to be around all my mom's brothers.  The whole thing was a little surreal and kind of lonely in the way any glimpse into a lost world is.   As usual, I missed mom.  I was glad for grandpa, though;  I think he was ready to get out of that body.  And of course, I got to spend the day with my sisters, and "never were there such devoted sisters".  I really love those girls.

I have almost no pictures of the boys, and this is because they were running amuck and generally acting stupid.  Usually when we get together, they run off and we hardly see them.  This trip, I had to wonder if this weirdo-ness was what we were missing--and it's really no loss, believe me.  I only missed seeing Autumn's kids--they were all sick.  Boo.  Next time.

Also, I discovered that I am a total weenie.  Chicken to the max.  I sat at the top of the kiddie ferris wheel with Ava and paige and thought, you know, I might actually wet my pants.  Ava was saying what's wrong with you, Goochie?  Nothing dear;  do hold still.  No leaning over girls--of course it's all perfectly safe, just no rocking, okay?  I don't delude myself into thinking I was ever a daredevil, but really.  If I weren't strapped in I might have jumped just to get down faster.  Protect the five year olds?  Uh-uh.  I used to say that I wasn't afraid of the rides;  I just didn't like them.  Bull.  I'm afraid.  Very afraid.  And what reasonable person wouldn't be?  It isn't natural.  Like dad's view of ultrasounds to determine a babies gender--it's against god and nature to strap yourself into a hunk of metal (or worse--wood!) and go flying through the air at unholy speeds.  I'm a very grounded person.