Mother Dearest

My mother is amazing, she truly is the most wonderful person on the face of this planet! she always has a smile on her face and a loving word to share! I suppose that is why she could always convince me to do the things I didn't always want to! clean my room, vacuum the basement, or go to the garden! I don't know how she did but with out guilt tripping me she would guilt trip me into doing these things.... yeah make sense of that one! if any of you know how she did it... please notify me, I have yet to figure it out! the worst was the Gardening! I was
all in for the playing in the dirt at the beginning, turning over the soil, planting and building the wind shelters (hurricane force winds are not uncommon where I am from) the squishing off bugs and the harvesting of food (I LOVE FOOD)  but when it came to the constant watering and weeding and all the in between stuff I was less than enthusiastic! In the long run though she ended up winning the battles of will and looking back I learned some of the most valuable lessons in life from the experiences I had in the Garden with her!

Each year we would wait for the snow to melt and the ground to thaw, we would go to our garden plots and dig up and turn over the earth, then add in peat moss, manure, top soil and fertilizer (all organic.... you know healthy kind of way) then we would make out the plan of what was going where this year! How many potato hills we needed, where should the beans go, Do we need more zucchini pants this year (The answer is no, NO you do NOT need any more zucchini!) where are the flowers going to be planted (yes flowers in a vegetable garden.... they attract pollinators) ect ect! with all that planned out we would begin to make rows, and hills, and wind tents! it was quite a production to have 6-7 kids running around trying to help plant a garden..... somehow my parents managed with out any major heart problems for many years (I would like to know their secret) eventually we would have potato hills made in neat little rows, tomato tents up, cucumbers in little milk jugs and beans and peas with trellises to grow on..... it was a pretty good looking garden!

After all that came the hard work.... the daily watering (twice daily sometimes) the weekly weeding (actually it was more than weekly but I liked the sound of the alliteration) the care needed for each plant, miracle grow ect ect! Almost every day of every week my mother called me out of the basement to go to the garden and work! often time she had to call me several times before I would put down what ever I may have been doing! (sometimes she would even have to come down the stairs...those were never the fun times) eventually I was convinced (or compelled) to come and work in the garden! hoeing out the weeds, watering individual cucumber and tomato plants and (my favourite) squishing plump juicy potato bugs! (their guts will turn your entire hand orange! I can't even begin to describe they joy it brought to my heart! SO MUCH FUN!!)

after months of this daily garden up keep we finally got to eat some of the fruits of our hard work! as we needed them vegetables were available, beans, zucchini,  peas, cucumbers, carrots, more zucchini (Even though the answer was always NO NO more zucchini we always planted more than enough Zucchini) and yet the work still wasn't done! even after we started to harvest we still needed to weed, and water, and care for all the plants! so now every day of every week we went to the garden to hoe weeds, water plants, harvest veggies and other up keep! even up to covering the garden with quilts and blankets for frosts (Canada? frost? never... I have seen snow in all 12 months at some point) this would continue until the final harvest. (usually would be when we caught word of the first really bad frost!) we would stay until after dark gathering all the salvageable tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, ect ect! a mass gathering of everything possible! and yet even after the final harvest the work wasn't done! we would have to take down all growing structures, cover up the withered plants for compost and nutrient rich soil. so are we done yet? NOPE, now for the washing, the preparing, the canning, the storage ect ect of all the harvested food! and by the time all that is done we are preparing the soil for next years growing season!

What lesson did I learn from this experience, a Garden doesn't just come to us! I now understand why my mother would strongly encourage me to participate in the yearly gardening, she wanted me to know not only how to prepare soil but prepare my soul! not only how to grow food, but to grow a testimony! not only to reap the fruits of the vine, but the fruits of the True Vine! (John 15:1) there are many people in the gardening world that buy a plot of land and say they have a garden... but they only have the potential for a garden! there are many who plant and say they have a garden.... still just the potential for that garden! others will water and weed at the beginning and say they have a garden and yet still the garden is only there in potential! the same goes with our testimonies, they can only grow and produce fruits by our constant and un wavering labours to keep them healthy! the daily receiving the Living Waters (John 4:10) to constantly bring out the weeds of doubt (Matt 13:7,22) to create the correct environment to cultivate an appropriate atmosphere for the word of life to take root and grow! I am very grateful that my Mother Dearest drilled this into my mind year after year, week after week and day after day! Our work in the garden was the evidence of our faith in the bounty of the final yield! with out the daily effort there would be no long term yield!

WMI? A TESTIMONY IS GROWN ONE DAY AT A TIME!