-
Family is like … lettuce growing in a planter tray.
For Christmas my son and daughter-in-law gave me an Advent Seed Calendar. I have had the best time planting the seeds from my Advent Seed Calendar … and watching them grow. The very first seeds I planted were Basil, Butterhead lettuce, and Arugula. I used an upside-down-lid from a huge Costco cookie platter. I filled…
-
Fork support
It was sunny today, so I carried my tray of little seedlings outside so they could get some sunshine. My Giant Sunflowers (from my Advent Seed Calendar) were getting tall and lanky, and starting to flop all over the place. To help them stand up (so they can grow straight) I propped each one up…
-
Swamp Lantern
I’ve always liked Skunk Cabbage plants. They grow in swampy places and in boggy spots, such as drainage ditches alongside roadways. One of the reasons I like Skunk Cabbage so much is that after endless months of dreary greyness and winter rains, the cheerful yellow Skunk Cabbage blooms are such a bright splash of…
-
Dealing with mistakes from a previous season
Hubby and I planted our garden about a month ago. Since then, the slugs have been voraciously feasting on any young tender green sprout. They’ve eaten away all of my sunflower sprouts, almost all my bean sprouts (except 3 or 4), they’ve eaten away half of my little tomato seedlings. Last week I went…
-
Give thanks in all things … and leave some margin.
Trying to grow a garden is a battle of me against nature. First off, it’s a challenge getting the seeds to sprout … as the chipmunks, squirrels, and birds keep digging up the seeds and eating them! If the seeds do survive and are actually able to sprout … then it’s the slugs who…
-
Seed puffs at sunset
After our Cinco de Madre party, I went out on the front porch to wave goodbye to the kids as they got in their cars to drive away. A dandelion was blooming in the cracks of the brick pavers … so I carefully pulled it up … and ever-so-carefully carried it across the front, headed…
-
Be still … and know that I am God.
The sun shines in my back windows … bringing life to my little containers of sprouts. It does not make any noise. There is no sound. It is very “still.” Yet life and growth is occurring! The little sprouts in the containers respond to the sunshine! They grow! They do not make any noise. There…
-
Gather every empty pot you can find!
There were 24 different packets of seeds in the Advent Seed Calendar which my son and daughter-in-law gave me for Christmas – a different packet of seeds for each day counting down to Christmas. Is that not the coolest gift ever! I am now in the process of planting my seeds … and I am…
-
We’re all uniquely different
I have been fascinated by how uniquely different all the seeds from my Advent Seed Calendar are. I was expecting only a tiny bit of seeds in each packet … but much to my surprise there are lots of seeds in each little seed packet. Check it out: Just look how many Cress seeds there…
-
Delighting over new growth!
I was just outside now checking on my newly planted seeds from my Advent Seed Calendar … and the seeds are beginning to come up! I am beyond excited! Here you can see my pot of Cress. I know it doesn’t look like much, but there really truly are little green sprouts all across the…
-
Misting the garden
I have been having such a good time with my Advent Seed Calendar which my son and daughter-in-law gave me for Christmas. Here you can see my Advent Seed Calendar back in December as I was opening up a new flap each day to discover a new little packet of seeds. I have been anxiously…
-
All the goodness of life!
Ever since my daughter asked me to harvest dandelion greens from our backyard for her bunny I’ve been checking Google to see about all the different things I can gather for bunny. Can bunny eat raspberry leaves? “Yes” Google tells me. WhooHoo! We’ve got lots of fresh tender raspberry leaves. Bunny will have so…
-
Give and take
My daughter recently asked me if I could harvest some dandelion greens from our backyard for her bunny. I told her: “Sure.” Then I had a brilliant thought! “How about let’s do an exchange. I can give you dandelion greens for bunny, in exchange for you giving me bunny poo-pellets for my garden.” (How brilliant…
-
A harvest of righteousness
For Christmas my son and daughter-in-law gave me an Advent Seed Calendar. I loved it! It was such great fun to open a little flap each day and discover a new exciting packet of seeds. I have been anxiously awaiting when I can finally plant my seeds. Four days ago, I decided to go ahead…
-
Chopped off … but there’s still so much hope!
I was sitting at my dining table this morning listening to an online sermon. The sun is shining today … and my soul was drinking in the sunshine. Winters where I live are very dark and grey, cloudy and rainy. Eventually you reach a point where everything in you feels starved for sunshine. So, I…
-
Are you still not ripe yet??
The month of October ushers in the season of pumpkins. Pumpkin-spice lattes appear at all the coffee shops! Pumpkin-spice candles are in all the stores. Pumpkins of every size spill out of large bins in front of grocery stores. Pumpkin patches are open! It’s the season of pumpkin carving, in anticipation of “The Great Pumpkin…
-
Generational legacy
The lupines are still blooming! It’s Labor Day weekend … and the lupines are still blooming! This brings me so much joy! Lupines are my favorite flowers! Right up there next to sunflowers! The lupines always start blooming right around Memorial Day weekend … as if ushering summer in. And here they are still blooming…
-
Support Circle!
A pop of bold vivid color on a grey, overcast, chilly day. This makes me so happy! My daughter gave me a package of yellow and a package of pink gladiolus bulbs for Mother’s Day last year. The yellow ones bloomed last summer. But the pink ones never did. This year the pink ones are…
-
The glory that is to be revealed
I was headed down the back deck steps with the watering can, to take some water over to the raspberries … when the gladiolus caught my eye! The sun was coming up right behind it, and the gladiolus blooms were just about ready to open! The verse immediately popped into my mind: “ … the…
-
What is your life? It is but a raspberry vine …
The temperatures climbed up into the 90’s this week. Hubby and I do not have a soaker hose in the berry garden, so in the coolness of the early morning I carried several watering cans over to water the raspberries and strawberries. As I stepped into the berry garden, I was taken aback by all…
-
When you feel chewed up by life
Some bug has taken up residence on my Hoopes rose this summer and has been eating the leaves to smithereens. Here you can see the chewed up leaves … I really liked this photo of the raindrops on the rose … it makes me think of tears. Oftentimes in life this is what it is…
-
Blooming tenaciously!
In spite of the setback of having their leaves eaten off by the deer, the hostas are blooming tenaciously! I find this to be so inspiring! In life we go through seasons and times when it feels as if our very “leaves” (so to speak) are “eaten off” by crises and life circumstances. We don’t…
-
Go … and replicate yourself.
Growing alongside the raspberries in my garden are a couple of strawberry plants. This strawberry plant here is one which hubby and I purchased three years ago from a fancy schmancy garden nursery. Much to my surprise this strawberry plant didn’t just bloom and produce strawberries in the spring. It continued to bloom and produce…
-
Raspberry Lessons: Parenting!
As I was picking raspberries I came across this grouping of berries up underneath the vines and leaves. My immediate “blink” reaction was: That’s just like parenting! These berries are not ready to be picked yet. They are not mature yet. And so, the protective bracts surrounding the developing berries are closed tight. Though ……
-
Raspberry Lessons: High and lofty!
I was out in the garden picking raspberries in the cool quiet of the early morning. As I gazed up at the highest raspberries reaching for the sky … the thought suddenly struck me: those raspberries way up there are “high and lofty!” When it comes to life, we are all told that the…
-
Raspberry Lessons: When people aren’t exactly what you expect.
Hubby and I purchased our raspberry plants several years ago. It was the middle of the winter, and Home Depot had little cardboard tubes of raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries for sale just outside the front entrance. Hubby and I were weary of winter and anxious for spring to arrive, so we picked up four little…
-
Blueberry lessons!
What better thing to do on a Saturday morning than to go blueberry picking! Hubby and I arrived at the U-pick farm bright and early. Hardly anyone else was there. We grabbed our buckets and checked the sign to see which rows and what varieties were ready for picking. All three varieties were ripe &…
-
Poppy blooms! … and seed pods!
Last fall someone very special from Idaho gathered her poppy seeds from her own poppy plants and sent them to me as a gift. Poppies are her favorite flowers. I generously spread poppy seeds in every container I own! Now … mid-summer I have been having the most fabulous time watching the poppy blooms open…
-
We all need a little support!
Mid-July is usually when the very first green beans are ready to be picked … and eaten! Yay! So I went out to the garden to see how the beans were doing. Lo and behold … the poor tomato plant was toppled over onto the ground. My life has been so insanely crazy recently I…
-
Joys of June – the raspberries are blooming!
The raspberries have just started blooming! Just look at that beautiful star-shape of a bloom! As I admire the intricate design of the star-shaped bloom I can’t help but praise God for his amazing creativity and beautiful design in the smallest details of creation. The raspberries, loaded with blooms, are growing out of the fence. …
-
Joys of June – strawberries are in season!
One of the things I love about the month of June is that the strawberries are in season. Usually around Father’s Day weekend is the peak of strawberry season. In years past we have enjoyed going to U-Pick Strawberry farms and loading up with big cartons of strawberries. Then coming home and making strawberry freezer…
-
Joys of June!
My Hoopes rose is blooming! This brings me so much joy! This little rose was a gift (probably 10 years ago) from some very special friends. I planted the little rose in our yard at the home where we lived 10 years ago. When we moved, I dug it up and it lived in a…
-
Joy of discovery!
I shared a few blog posts ago that this is the first year the deer have not eaten off all my Bunchberry Dogwoods … and as a result, our front flowerbed has been a sea of beautiful dogwood groundcover with pretty little white dogwood blooms. My Bunchberry Dogwoods have brought me so much joy this…
-
So … how is it going??
I know you are just dying to know how the mums are doing, after they survived overwintering in the workshop … and barely escaped being eaten by the deer! You might be thinking: “They are probably thriving and growing! I bet they are big & bushy by now! I bet they already have little blooms…
-
Blooming sideways
My friend who recently had intense spine surgery (where they cut her back open from top to bottom and re-straightened her spine with rods) just had her 6-week post-op follow-up appointment, in which she was told by the surgeon that the upper fixtures to hold the spine upright did not remain attached. The bones had…
-
Be careful what you bring inside!
Hubby and I were at the garden center picking up some potting soil for our new planter box on the back deck. We made sure to get some really good potting soil with steer manure … our plants will like that! We toted our fancy potting soil home and poured it into the planter box…
-
From the outside looking in …
Hubby built me a new planter for summer. I’m thrilled! He had been puttering about in the workshop this past winter, figuring out a creative way to make a planter box out of leftover decking material and leftover metal roofing panels. Voila! His masterpiece! He made four different sections, so I can plant Basil, Cilantro,…
-
Parable of the Big-Leaf Maple seeds!
I have been outside on my hands and knees in the flowerbeds pulling up Big-Leaf Maple sprouts. Therefore, it seemed fitting to share the parable of the Sower. (from Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23; and Luke 8:4-15) On a grey, overcast Fall day, the Big-Leaf Maple tree scattered its bazillions of seeds in a strong windy gust! …
-
Springing up to life!
A few years ago, hubby and I picked up a package of lily bulbs at the garden nursery. There were three bulbs in the package. Hubby and I assumed the lilies would grow to be about knee-height, so we planted them in the front flowerbed in front of the house. But as it turned out,…
-
Love sees beyond the surface to what matters most.
I wrote a few months ago about my attempt to overwinter my mums. This is the first time I have ever attempted to overwinter anything. Being Fall mums from the garden nursery, they of course were rootbound and needed to be transplanted to bigger pots if I was going to overwinter them. I didn’t…
-
Love is peaceable.
Love doesn’t leave prickles in your palms afterwards. I wrote yesterday about tidying up the raspberry vines. It was one of those rare sunny afternoons, so I was wandering around the backyard delighting in springtime joys. I hadn’t intended to do any work in the garden. It just happened … rather spur-of-the-moment. There I was…
-
Love is teachable.
I was wandering the back yard on a rare sunny afternoon, delighting in springtime joys – when I wound up over at the berry garden. Oh, check it out … the raspberries are coming back to life. Just look at all those new little green leaves! The raspberry vines sprawled every which way in a…
-
Love covers.
A small patch of these mushrooms sprang up in the grass just out from the kitchen window. I have never seen mushrooms quite like this before. Immediately the passage in Psalm 91:1 came to mind: “He/she who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. … God…
-
Their snow is better than my snow.
I woke up this morning to a beautiful world of wintry whiteness outside my windows. As I stood at my kitchen sink fixing breakfast, the thought popped into my head: “Their snow is better than my snow.” It was such an absurd thought that it took me completely off guard, and I almost laughed out…
-
Blooming today!
My daughter surprised me by swinging by the house and dropping off this pretty little plant during her lunch break. What a wonderful surprise! I was absolutely delighted! This little flower has brought me so much joy the past week and a half! It is a bright splash of happiness sitting on my kitchen counter! …
-
Overwintering
Last October I tagged along with hubby to Home Depot to pick up a couple of packs of fasteners. At the front entrance, the display of mums caught my attention! I was smitten! We wound up bringing two pots of mums back home with us! These two pots of mums brought me so much joy…
-
Beauty … in the “in-between.”
I stepped out on the front porch early this morning as hubby left for work. All across the front flowerbed little icy crystals sparkled with beauty in the reflection of the house floodlights. It looked like hundreds of tiny little diamonds sprinkled all across the front! It was so beautiful! It was still dark as…
-
Luxury Caps
Two weeks ago, I was surprised to discover these mushrooms coming up in the front flowerbed. My Seek Nature App informed me that these are “Luxury Caps.” I was in awe! I have never seen mushrooms such as these! There were about 8 or 9 different clusters of these “Luxury Caps” coming up here and…
-
How much yield??
So … hubby and I planted only a few handfuls of wheat seeds. Our wheat patch was quite small, as you can see. And since this was our very first time attempting to grow wheat, hubby and I did not really know how much to expect in terms of yield. To be honest, we didn’t…
-
Joy!
Today’s blog post is in honor of our very dear precious friends down in Portland – K&P. If there is anyone who embodies “joy” it is this couple! For the past two years this couple has been walking a very difficult journey … yet, all along the way the joy of Jesus has been shining…