The challenge – The Bible in 90 days (June 1 – August 29)http://www.biblein90days.com/index.php?option=com_challenge&pgID=5 “Dive into the Good Book and read the Bible from cover to cover before summer ends. The Bible in 90 Days Summer Reading Challenge is designed to unify your whole church family in a simple but life-changing goal – to read every word of the Bible this summer.”
I much prefer digging in deep and taking more time, but there is also the beauty of immersion. The summer seems a ridiculous time for it (with a family reunion, traveling, vacation and a little thing called Heaven Fest), but that is what is intriguing me….
Found in drafts folder from last summer. Mea Culpa. This was part of the writings by a group of us who read Sacred Romance last summer and wrote about it. Wrote a lot about it! My apologies to Amy Jo for my delay in posting this, but she did include a quote about April which makes it seem as though it was meant for now. Maybe it was…
Amy Jo and her husband, Damon
EPILOGUE: Remembering Toward Heaven
From Amy Jo: How lovely that Tolkien, T.S. Eliot and Annie Dillard should all be quoted in the epilogue! Interspersed in our authors’ final thoughts, there are jewels I must point out…
On Living From Desire: It is in this section that the authors quote T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land,
“April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire.”
“Sadly, many of us have been led to feel that somehow we ought to want less, not more. We have this sense that we should atone for our longings, apologize that we feel such deep desire. Shouldn’t we be more content? Perhaps, but contentment is never wanting less, that’s the easy way out. Anybody can look holy if she’s killed her heart; the real test is to have your heart burning within you and have the patience to enjoy what there is now to enjoy, while waiting with eager anticipation for the feast to come.” (p.199)
On Rehearsing the Story: “Our acts of remembering must therefore involve both essential truths and dramatic narrative. I believe we need to hold the creeds in on hand and our favorite forms of art in the other. There are films, books, poems, songs, and paintings I return to again and again for some deep reason in my heart. Taking a closer look, I see that they all tell me about some part of the Sacred Romance. They help wake me to a deeper remembrance. As Don Hudson has said, ‘Art is, in the final analysis, a window on heaven.'” (p.205) It is my opinion that the last two sections, Where We Have Come From and Where We Are Headed, are part of the very rehearsing the authors recommend. I am encouraged by the quote of Annie Dillard on p. 209, “The world is fairly studded and strewn with unwrapped gifts and free surprises… cast broadside from a generous hand.” These gifts and free surprises are to me, what inspires encouragement to live, a desire to dream of the future, and an insatiable urge to see, imitate, manufacture, and praise God for beauty.
May God use these things often to refresh my memory of His faithful and Sacred Romance!
Yes! Yes! Yes! Thanks, Amy Jo! And AMEN!
PS – April is being kind of cruel…S n o w ! ? ! today…
A chocolate butterfly cut-out, approximately 11″ x 13″ (hand cut from a 12″ x 16″ pan) decorated to compliment her butterfly balloon set (the color and inspiration for the whole party). There are butterfly-shaped pans out there. Why did I not use one? I thought I’d be clever, I guess, and create my own.
Alyssa’s grandma (Pearl) says the birthday girl liked her cake.
The guest cake
Two-tier, 3-layer cakes (approx. 6″ height each tier). The bottom square: my rather infamous lemon-poppyseed filled with lemon curd cream. The top tier, chocolate-fudge pudding cake with milk chocolate filling. Buttercream over all.
All together
About 3 dozen eggs, 4 pounds of butter, 7+ pounds of cake flour, some canola oil, less than 5 pounds of sugar, 6+ pounds confectioner’s sugar, the juice and zest of a dozen large lemons (smells soooo good), chocolate moistening syrup.
Alyssa will be one this week! Just a little over a year ago we were having a baby shower for her mommy (and daddy), Audrey and Ben. A quick look back at the shower and then a glance at this cake and you’ll know Audrey-the-artist-and-mommy is not afraid of color! Nothing pastel about her! Aaaah… Time flies and life is a celebration!
Until next time…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: cookie decorating with the grand-bebes to use up the rest of the icing.
pictured: the cake, of course….the final pic is Ally’s cake after she’d had a chance to dig in. I am still having photo-posting problems here at the blog and my silly camera flash was not usable (boooooo). What you can’t see is that the butterflies were also glittery. It was a happy cake!
6:00 a.m. I am happy to report that the little pile of garden “debris,” some stray grass and old roots that I had pulled from one of the beds while “spring-cleaning” my 3′ x 3′ area the other day, has been gratefully discovered and is being used by a large group of small sparrows and a couple of fat robins. They, in turn, are digging through the little pile and whisking off what they can use to feather their nests.
I am happy to have been of service.
A glorious morning is shaping up…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Leave the bat cave at regular intervals today – look directly into the sun.
NOTE: The Aspens are leafing out rapidly this week! The Purple-Leafed Sand Cherries are heavy with dainty, pink flowers – a bit late this year, but worth the wait. They knew to hide until the snow blizzard had passed.
If you try to plant too many things, you will be defeated. But if you start with one or maybe three things that you simply must grow for they cannot be purchased to perfection like you could grow them, then you will not only survive, you will thrive. And since you are only really counting on those one-to-three things, since they are getting all your love, you’ll end up realizing, Well, I could probably tuck a basil plant here since I am here frequently, and maybe a few radishes under the shade of the zucchini leaves. And soon you’ll be companion planting and actually doing more than you thought.
But if you go to the store and buy 37 packages of seeds, you are doomed. Doomed.
My favorites.
I started out gardening with ZERO experience in 1997. I am a city girl with a farmer’s heart – except that they have to pretty much work the farm 24/7 365 days a year and I am not quite that committed. I decided on tomatoes.
My Aunt Rosie always served us home grown tomatoes fresh from her garden and regardless of whatever else was served, they were like having the best Texas steak you have ever seen on your plate.
So when I decided to do it, I actually went to the library and checked out about 17 veggie garden books and one wholly devoted to tomatoes and read and read and read. The author of the tomato book basically said, “If you’re going to grow tomatoes, you should grow the best ones on the block. Do not go into it half-heartedly. Do everything possible to have the sweetest, biggest, most amazing tomatoes anyone has ever seen.” So, as a tribute to all the books I’d read about them, I actually planted about 17 tomatoes plants and they were the BEST tomatoes I had ever seen in my life! Now-the neighbors and everyone I knew dreaded seeing me coming, but I kept everyone I knew fully tomato’ed!
Other stuff I like to grow
Zucchini and yellow squash are great to grow for grilling. But they take a lot of room. I grow them mainly because I can feel haughty when I am in the store and they are selling for $1.00 each and I have just picked 7 or 8 of them for dinner. ALWAYS pick them young, slice in thick on the diagonal, toss them in extra-virgin olive oil, season and grill. You get great grill marks and they are delectable!
Peas are the gardener’s candy. Sugar snap peas are wonderful because you can eat the whole pod or not, as you wish. Great stir-fry. Very sweet. The grandbabies and I snack while we work!
Radishes. Don’t try these in the heat of summer. They get too hot. But they grow quickly and are very fresh and crisp early. Plant them outside now if you want.
Beans are easy. Every kindergartener starts out this way.
Peppers are great. They are pretty plants, too, so they make a great potted plant and there are just so many varieties you can’t get in the store.
I also like lettuces, and sometimes okra and the eggplant is so pretty (but I always forget how to fix them). So many directions a person could go. And don’t forget to tuck in some marigolds and nasturtiums while you’re at it. They’re edible, add some beautiful color and keep the icky bugs away to boot!
My real bottom line.
But there I go again – telling you too many things at once.
So, if I could only plant one thing, it would be tomatoes. Those transparent-barely-pink things on your fast food burgers are NOT tomatoes. Late summer, you can find some great tomatoes at the farmer’s market, but there is nothing, I mean nothing, like growing your own.
They are worth the effort, the babying, the prep, the watching, the watering and weeding! And if you can grow the tomato, which is THE most wondrous thing, you can now grow anything! Good times!
I Corinthians 15.35b The Message: We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.
Tomatoes, of course! And maybe…
About three years ago I was in a meltdown during planting season. It was the middle of June and I hadn’t done anything. There sat my 3 4-foot-by-4-foot boxes: empty. I knew I had no strength to accomplish anything, to plant, but I needed something. I planted a purchased tomato plant in one. One had 3 green bean “volunteers” coming up, so I just put a trellis in it (seeds from the previous year had gone into the soil and were growing with no effort on my part) and I found a zucchini seed or two in my produce drawer in a little baggie and popped those in to the final garden square.
They filled my three boxes. They actually looked beautiful and tended to. They grew though I was barely functioning and every single day they gave me the hope I needed that normalcy would return and I would grow past the place I was in. Every day a new leaf or flowering would appear, I knew I was another day past the sorrow – that life would happen again.
Those were all I could handle. Yet, we had zucchini and beans and tomatoes that summer as if I had worked for them. It was like God tended my garden when I couldn’t. It was God and it was good…
So go easy on yourself and garden!…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: I am not behind, either.
pictured: scouting out last year’s tomatoes one evening…I spy!
In my part of the Rocky Mountain Region, the “final frost date” is approximately May 10, give or take a few days. That is an important date to know because it is sort of a gardening ground zero – the date around which all your garden grows!
Find your Final Frost Date!
Here is one link to help you find it. Knowing your area’s final frost date pretty much works for anyone anywhere as far as when to plant what. So, I am going to use the abbreviation FFD to indicate that is what I am talking about when I tell you my own personal plan of spring garden-action below.
Now everyone from my sister Tami in Corbin, KY to my sister-in-law in Aberdeen, SD, my mom in Springfield, Mo and even my fam in Butte, MT or Hobart, IN can use these numbers!
Seeds to sow indoors NOW! which can be planted outdoors after the FFD:
After Mother’s Day, weather-permitting, you can start plopping established plants in everywhere. I do have some sweet banana peppers growing on the windowsill, but most of my peppers and all of my tomatoes will come from pre-established seedlings I pick up at the nursery and they will not be planted until mid-May or after if I fear the night temps will drop below 55-degrees or so. I can find a great variety out here in “farmland country” at locally owned farm stands. So, planting seeds for these is not my deal. I will have squash and zuch ready to go at that time.
I only have 3 4 ft. x 4 ft. garden boxes for my veggie garden, although I also tuck stuff in here and there around the rest of the yard and use containers, too. So buying a parsely plant or two makes way more sense than buying a whole package of seeds and feeling compelled to plant every single one and then not having anywhere to place the plants in the garden, anyway.
Make yourself a List!
After the FFD, I will plant both seeds and seedlings.
Pre-established seedlings: started by me or purchased
Tomatoes (I’ll buy)
Peppers (I am already growing some, others I will buy)
Cucumbers (I may seed indoors-or just directly outdoors…don’t know yet)
Zucchini (I have some started, will sow more outdoors)
Squash (same as zucchini)
Cool stuff I find at the nursery like herbs or lemon cukes, etc
PLUS-fill those pots with flowers! (annuals will provide the most continous color-punch for the immediate buck, but perennials are an investment that will serve you year after year)
Seeds: Straight into the soil
Beans (grown them vertically for space-saving)
More lettuce, More spinach, More radish (these are all cool-weather, so it would be the last planting of them, though currently, you could plant a few more weekly for varied-date harvesting)
More zucchini and squash for subsequent harvests
Giant sunflowers for the grandkids, pumpkins and gourds (I plant the stuff that thrills the grandkids – big things, colorful things – for fun!)
It is important to note that where my radishes and lettuce and other cool-weather plants are right now, by July will have been replaced by warm-weather plants like tomatoes and peppers and zucchini. The same garden will be totally different – filled with flowers and herbs and other heat-lovers. I don’t have much space, so I use succession planting and timing to get the most out of it!
Bonus tip:
If you want to garden, but are afraid, start with a “salsa garden.” Go ahead and plant your oinion sets now (they are sold in bags or bunches in the garden section and look like mini dried onions. Then, plant your peppers and tomatoes after the FFD. Add some cilantro seedlings then, too and you’ll be off to the races for some late August salsa you’ll actually dream about!
OK-so this post was all over the map. There are many other things you could be planting, but these are my must-haves. I am also going to try to do potatoes this year for the first time. They should already be out there! Yikes! The thing is-I can look at that list and know, OK-this week I can do this. Next week I can do that. And it isn’t all one, big, heavy to-do list. Here a little, there a little…
Go sit in the Garden…
Mission: (Are you sitting in the garden? No? Then go there before you even attempt this!) So, today – make a list of veggies you want and decide which you’ll do from seed and which you’ll do from seedlings. If you just go stand in front of the seed display, I promise you, you will buy tooooooooo many seeds and either waste them or never plant them. Go eeeeeeeeasy on yourself! Then [1] go ahead and plant seedlings and seeds that can go out now [2] plant some seeds in cups indoors if you are going to – a thrill for the kiddos and [3] let the rest slip from your mind until it is time.
Going to the garden…Jeanie
pictured: one evening last summer ~ the last of the lettuce and spinach and radishes (which were mostly gone) and where the large pepper plants were about to get sunk.
Genesis 2.8 NKJV “The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there He put the man whom He had formed.”
And if we are smart – we will make every effort to get back to the garden with Him!
Gardening can seem overwhelming, but it isn’t if you take it step-by-step, here a little, there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept…
First things first.
If you believe you are sorely behind to be able to garden this year – you’re NOT! Spend 5-15 minutes each day this week cleaning up debris from the fall and winter. Clear out dead leaves, sweep patios and empty all of last year’s potting soil into a large trash can. It can be re-used, of course, but we’ll add some good stuff to it and re-freshen it for this year. Hose down the pots and line them up.
Does that seem overwhelming? Then just tell yourself: I’ll clean up a 3-foot x 3-foot area. that’s all. I am betting you’ll like it so much you’ll want to keep on, but if not, stop there. Little by little, it can be done.
Do you know what you’ll see? Green everywhere. Perennials will have been emerging that will suddenly “show up!” You will have a fresh clean palette in which to work.
Start indoors.
It is safe to go ahead and start some things indoors now (because our final frost date of May 10 is approaching quickly). Any annual flower or vegetable seeds, really – have at it! If you have a super-sunny windowsill or a grow light, you’ll have nicely established seedlings in mid-May, right when you want them for outdoor planting.
Sow outdoors.
There are actually things you can be planting directly outdoors already. My broccoli has been in the ground (from seedlings) for a couple of weeks and last week’s weather didn’t phase them a bit. I put out onion sets yesterday and they could have been in earlier. Right now it is safe to plant radishes and carrots, sugar snap peas and spinach and chard and lettuces.
Tomorrow, I’ll tell you my current garden “plan of attack.” I am like everybody else: busy. So, it has to get tucked in here and there, but it will be so worth it when you see that you have buried a seed and caused new life to explode – first in the garden, later (if you do veggies) into your body!
Pearl is not afraid of color. Though quiet as a person, Pearl is a very bold decorator. You have to check out her before and after pictures here. She is truly one of the most talented friends I have!
Sneak peek, a quintessentially-Pearl wall painting:
I can’t help it – I am finding more and more chalk stuff. This post, as opposed to the one here (mostly about kitchen and dining areas) and the one here (dealing with lots of different spaces in a house) is about some smaller-type-project ideas. These are do-able little things that people are apparently…doing. It just seems fun, so here are a few bits of inspiration for you…
It is all about gardening and seedlings right now (what? you don’t have seedlings on the windowsill yet?!?…tsk!):
Recycling old jars for the pantry and 101 uses for small terra cotta planters:
Maybe a game tray for family night? PVC pipe napkin rings?
Give me the world!
LOVE this! There are those world globes which are outdated, but not old enough to be antique. Those would be great candidates for this treatment. I like the traveling “wish list.” Someday~Tuscany, the Provence, Spain, Greece, Fiji…
A cabinet and an orb from nature…
A recycling box and some chalkboard-on-burlap tags:
See those same chalkboard tags on some baskets?
And, on the right, a better look at the tags on the baskets in the cabinets. These kitchen cabinets, btw, were originally builders-basic honey oak cabinetry which the homeowner painted black. Good thinking!
And now, a bonus~
This is a really cool dining room I just found and L-O-V-E!!! I love the candle-chandelier, the numbers on the back of the chairs, the toile and of course, the blackboard. And some beautiful flowering bulbs which remind us to “bloom!”
I still haven’t opened my can of blackboard paint, though. What if I find something better??
Amy Jo and her husband, Damon
