Weeds. They are the bane of my existence it seems. Just when I get one area caught up, another is awaiting my attention. Sometimes I keep up with them regularly, pulling each little sprout as I find it. Other times (like lately...) a variety of areas compete for my time and attention and soon the sprouts are spreading, threatening to get out of control if I don't take some quick action.
Gardening teaches me a lot about myself and the weeds are no exception for I have found they exist elsewhere - the soil of my mind. Just a small unhealthy thought, a tiny little seed, and left alone it sprouts. Even worse, I feed it with doubt or fear and soon there is a full grown weed in there that is much harder to remove than if I had just plucked it right away.
A few years back we watched a television program with hidden cameras and an actor portraying a sales clerk who was informing customers that the store policy was they didn't give change back. Can you even imagine? The poor store patrons could not. The "clerk" pointed to the sign clearly stating that the store policy was indeed no change back. One after the other the customers would react with surprise, frustration or even anger as the clerk explained the policy over and over. One gentleman, however, did not. He questioned it and then just shrugged it off. The host of the show stepped in revealing that this was a hidden camera and asked the man why he didn't get upset or angry like the others. I will never forget his response: "I don't let people rent space in my head."
I have thought of his response often. It's easy to let negative thoughts or hurtful comments rent space in my head. I also find it is much easier to pluck those thoughts when they are just seeds and replace them with something better. It's my choice - flowers or weeds.
There is
a
springtime awakening
all around.
Signs of life in abundance.
Plantings ripening,
ready even.
Springtime comes
in weather,
and
in life,
after a long winter.
It brings with it hope,
and life
and newness.
In Creation.
In me.
Linking up with Life and Linda here for Dishing it and Digging it.
Life has been a bit challenging around here this week. I spotted this beautiful creature near the river just minutes from home. The photos are not great quality because I had to shoot quickly. It was a perfectly timed reminder though to not let my circumstances (actually those of family I dearly love) keep my heart grounded, to let those burdens go, to renew my strength, to rise higher, to soar.
One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
(Helen Keller)
When circumstances try to ground you
remember:
You were made to soar.
(Is. 40:31)
Refuse to be average.
Let your heart soar as high as it will.
(AW Tozer)
Whatever challenges you may be facing this day
I pray you are able to rise above them.
For me, a special part of the heatwave we have been experiencing here in the Pacific Northwest has been the ability to venture outdoors in the early, cool hours of the morning with a steaming mug of tea to just be still.
In that stillness the other morning I heard a horse across the road begin to whinny. After a pause, I heard another across the valley respond back, the solo becoming a duet.
As I listened closer I could hear the crow of a rooster join in to form a trio.
Adding to what was definitely now a barnyard band, a few chickens and a duck.
Rounding out the voices were several bleating goats.
A wonderful morning symphony found in the stillness.
I smiled widely.
I found myself wanting to join their praise,
to add my voice to their song.
God gave us each a voice and those individual voices matter.
Just think of the many ways they can be used for good:
To compliment, to encourage, to honor, to praise,
to love.
To speak out, to speak for, to speak peace,
to speak life.
Your voice is special and unique,
yours alone to use.
Your one voice is good.
One voice can make a difference.
But when we join our voices together,
they grow stronger
and louder.
The music we make with our combined voices
is a glorious thing.
So sing that solo,
form a duet,
even a trio,
join a band
or
perform with a symphony.
Let your voice be heard as only you can speak it.
Just never stop singing
the brilliant song
Picking a bouquet of lavender from the garden to bring inside for right now.
(It smells so wonderful.)
Gathering more to dry for later.
(A sachet perhaps? A lavender wand?)
Picking blueberries warm from the sun now.
(Hard to resist letting them "fall" right into my mouth.)
Ready to wash, air dry and freeze to use
in smoothies, muffins and more later.
(The fresh taste of berries in winter is such a treat.)
Whole grain blueberry pancakes for breakfast this very moment.
(Only one bite left...)
For all you regular readers, I am planning to take the month of July off for vacation, family gatherings, gardening, projects, rest and refreshing. I hope to see you back in August as I endeavor to search for beauty in the ordinary, blessing in the extraordinary.
It's a simple Saturday around our house.
Washing windows inside
with a view of planter box flowers from the kitchen.
Washing windows outside
with a view of the entire planter box.
It is a favorite this year, the orange flowers opening and closing with the sun.
Pruning a stubborn Camellia bush
who grows where she shouldn't.
Gathering a clipping of her waxy green leaves
into a recycled sort of vase.
Wishing you a Saturday of simple beauty found where you least expect it.
As you can see by the raindrops outside the greenhouse, we are having a rainy day here in the Pacific Northwest. I am grateful for that is what keeps us green around here. And green is a good thing because it is the season of growing around our house. (Which is why I took an unplanned blogging break...)
I recently added several Japanese paper lanterns inside the greenhouse for a bit of color. They have battery lights inside and will look so pretty at night during the summer months.
There are several things growing in the outside garden but I still have some seedlings inside the greenhouse. Above is several basal starts and two pots of pansies as well.
And look at the pepper plant producing already! I am growing two different varieties - an orange and a green.
Until today our weather has been pretty mild. Three days in a row I sat out this stick of unsalted butter thinking I wanted to make some cookies. Two of the days I put it back in the refrigerator because it was a better day to garden rather than bake.
Today, however, was a perfect day to bake. Oatmeal chocolate chip - my favorite! And in case you don't get your fill of chocolate from the cookies (I like them heavy on the oatmeal and light on the chips), a jar of dark chocolate, Himalayan salted almonds. An indulgent reward for all the vegetable gardening : )
What have you all been up too? I hope to get caught up with everyone soon. In the mean time, have a great weekend friends...
We have been having warm, moist (as in rain...) weather here this week and the raspberries are loving it. These are 3rd year canes and they are producing wonderfully. We are planning to double the patch next year for an even bigger yield.
I hope that means there will be much more of this yummy raspberry freezer jam in our future!
We spent yesterday evening doing some yard work that
included staking up our second year boysenberry plant onto a trellis. It has a lot of blooms and I am excited to
see those berries develop and ripen. A
few days before I managed to reign in the somewhat unruly raspberries but not
before their thorns left me with several bloodied scratches. No pain, no gain ~ even in gardening!
Working in the berries I can’t help but be reminded of a
childhood memory involving me and “Gammie”.
Gammie was my great-grandma, the mother of my Grandma Peggy and my Mom’s
grandma. I used to stay with my Grandma
Peggy a lot growing up and Gammie had come to live in a small, single wide
trailer on their property, close enough to my grandparents that they could keep
a watch on her but far enough away that she still had her independence.
I would eat breakfast at my Grandma Peggy’s but then would
head over to Gammie’s a bit later during her breakfast time and have toast and
jam. We would visit and she would
entertain me. She was full of spunk and
always had a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
Weather permitting we also went on walks around the
property. My grandparents had big rhododendrons,
fragrant lilacs and various other wonders to see and smell at their country home. Occasionally we would wander down the
dead-end road just past their house. It
was on that road that the blackberry incident occurred.
One warm, summer morning, after toast, Gammie decided she
wanted to pick some of the wild blackberries along the dead-end road and I was
more than happy to accompany her. We set
off with buckets in hand to claim our treasured berries. All was fine at the start as the berries were
picked and plunked into buckets. A few were eaten, because who can resist
a warm blackberry fresh from the vine?
We continued our picking when she spied a few berries under
the brambles on top and leaned in to reach them. A result of her age, her balance was off and
in she tumbled, head first right into the blackberries! Hearing faint cries for help, as she fell deep, off I ran back
to my grandparents where my Mom and Grandma were visiting inside. Tears streaming I tried to explain Gammie’s
plight but was so upset I could hardly choke out the words. “Gammie fell.” My Grandma Peggy and my Mom ran quickly.
Me? I hid under the
dining room table scared to death!
My Mom and Grandma came back soon, definitely shaken. Gammie was not hurt though,
other than a few scratches and what I now imagine were a few bumps and bruises
to boot. I, however, stayed under the
table. I was scared for her. But I was scared for me too, scared of losing
her.
Well, I eventually came out from beneath the table and life
continued as usual. We had many more
days of toast with jam (though we both avoided the berries) before she was
unable to be cared for at home and was moved to a nursing home. Due to age and health her body was declining
but her inner spark remained. I assume
this must have been what attracted a fellow nursing home resident, gentlemen
caller, to visit her room. I still
remember them sitting side by side in their wheelchairs holding hands. That and the silverware she would take and hide in her bedside drawer, but that is another story (grin).
I miss my Gammie but am thankful to have had her in my life
for as long as I did. I think of her on warm
spring and summer days when I smell the lilacs or tend the berries, when I make jam or have toast. And when we venture out to the woods to pick the little wild
blackberries, it’s then that I miss her
most.
Today, on this first day of Spring, this is what we awoke to: lots and lots of rain, lots and lots of wind complete with branches blown down and fear of losing electricity. I am not complaining though. We have had a pretty mild winter here near the coast of the Pacific Northwest and for that I am grateful.
I waited for a break in the weather and decided to grab the camera on the way to the mailbox. The rain let up just long enough for me to find signs, like these pretty pink primroses peeking out beneath the leaves that I have yet to clear, that spring is on the way and that gives me hope.
I love Spring, when all the newness bursts forth showing off just a bit and all the fresh hope of brighter days ahead. I hold on to that hope as the season changes and as life does too.
We are celebrating this stormy Spring day with a pot of homemade soup, a loaf of warm bread and thankful hearts for what has been...and what is to come.
HAPPY SPRING!
"Be joyful in hope..." Romans 12:12
One thing I have learned living in the country is to expect
the unexpected.
We may find the river has flooded the bridge across the river
or the creek has washed out the main road to the forest. We lose electricity for the umpteenth time
which renders our pump useless and we are also without water.
There are rock slides and mud slides.
There are groups of mountain bikers and vehicles of hikers
looking for directions to nearby trails and knocks on the door in the middle of
the night from those who have gotten their vehicles stuck in the woods.
There are kids selling fresh picked berries or just caught
fish at all hours of the day or night.
There are escaped cows, horses and chickens as well as the
occasional escaped prisoner from the Department of Natural Resource work
crews.
There are tractors driving slow, pickups driving fast and
ATV’s driving crazy. There are riders
atop horses and even those who text and ride!
We hear cougars and coyotes who rarely show their faces. We hear country, gospel, rock and
mariachi.
We see squirrels, deer, pheasants, geese and ducks. Occasionally we see a bobcat or black bear.
And yesterday these fine Toms paid our neighborhood a
visit.
I love the country life…
I
received an e-mail “forward” today asking if I have ever seen a peacock in full
flight. They went on to share a few
pictures and tell of the beauty and majesty of these birds.
I
have to tell you I know this to be true from personal experience. I HAVE seen a peacock in full flight. Just
across the river from us is a house that keeps peacocks. I have learned to
watch carefully as I pass by this place because they tend to hide in the ditch
looking for bugs in the gravel and have been known to wander into the road.
One
day I thought I saw movement in the ditch to I slowed up a little and one FLEW
up and across my car so close to the windshield that I thought for sure feathers
would fly as I pressed hard on the brakes. Fortunately, for both him and I, it
did make it past the windshield and out of harm’s way -but I sure got a scare. Before I started onward I noticed a second
peacock in the ditch and let it fly past also. Such an unexpected event in my day.
Now I watch for wandering AND flying peacocks!
One
of those same birds, a few years earlier, had somehow made its way over to our
side of the river and proceeded to make itself at home in our yard where it
would “nest” beneath one of our trees and search around for what bugs it might
find in the grass and garden. It would
often fly up on our roof and sit, tail feathers draping downward toward the
back of our house. It would occasionally
wander off but always returned again to search and nest and make his way to the
roof. It did this off and on for a few months. He was becoming a part of our landscape, an almost pet. In
fact, our daughter named him Paul the Peacock! We sure had a lot of people slowing up as they passed by our house with that crazy bird on the roof...
After
a time either Paul’s owners finally caught up to him (as they had tried and
failed previously) or he found a new place to inhabit with his beauty as we never
saw him here again. He left behind great
memories along with an assortment of discarded feathers.
Peacocks
are beautiful birds indeed, on the ground or in flight - though I most definitely prefer viewing them through
household windows rather than the windshield of my car!
(Photos Copyright (c) <a href='http://www.123rf.com'>123RF Stock Photos</a>)
The sun is warm today but there is an ever so slight nip in
the air. Many of our potted plants have
begun a slow decline and our night time temperatures have dipped as low as the
mid thirties. But there are still glorious
flowers to celebrate.
The big heads of the dahlias are reaching for the waning
rays of warmth.
This tropical beauty is working overtime to bring a few last
blossoms before being moved to the warmer confines of indoors until this time next year.
The beautiful purple/blue hydrangea blooms are ready to be
savored in at least one more early autumn arrangement.
I am thoroughly enjoying the last drops of summer on this
last Saturday of the season. I hope you
are too…
