Blooming where you're planted

How can God use me, a stay-at-home-mom with a limited social circle and interaction with strangers?  In the grocery store, in lines at the pharmacy and over a couple racks of heirloom tomatoes at the local market:
After a conversation of how good that first summer tomato sandwich will taste, how Jackson River Road used to be called Cedar Creek and on why he chooses yellow 'maters over red, and "would you guess that I'll be 80 years old next month?" I asked him bluntly - 'where will you go when you die?'
Yup.  I threw it out there and didn't even flush.  I said it like the "how to witness" books tell you to, how the Sunday School lessons suggest, how I've heard of others doing it.
"In the ground, I guess."
'No, you know what I'm talking about, after y- - - '
"I don't believe in any of that mess.  Now, look, I can go through that Bible and show you where its wrong and there's nothing in it ~ for starters (holding up a bony finger), how can ONE being, ONE thing create all of this (waving his hand over the tomato patch and at the mountain behind us) in six days?  What about the fish in the ocean?  And the universe, too?  There's just no way that ~ why, we've even PROVED it that dinosaurs was here for millions of years and the Bible expects us to believe the earth is only 7,000 years old?  And people coming back from the dead after all that ~ they's just no way they was dead in the first place...now, I was baptized way back in the, the, I was born in '31, ya know; I was baptized and I used to believe all that but then I got to thinkin' how there was just no way the Bible could be true, what they tell you young people, its all wrong...."
"You've obviously given this a lot of thought, but see hear those two kids squallin in the car over there?  They're mine, and I'll have to get them home.  I'd been wondering if I'd be seeing you in eternity."
"There's no such thing.  When I go in the ground I'm staying there.  Now, I can see I"m making you mad with all this, but you just have got to know that you're wrong about all this.  There's no such thing as all that, you'll find that out for yourself one day ~ that Bible is, well, its just all wrong you know..."
"I'm not mad at all, in fact I am feeling pretty good right now, but my girls are getting louder, can't you hear them?"
"I know I made you mad, I make a lotta folks mad about this, but I know I'm right about it, you're mad..."
"No sir, I just have to get my girls home.  I don't get mad!  If anything I feel sorry for you because I know what I believe and I wish you the best yourself, have a nice day!"
"Waaal, I knowed I made you mad..."

I wasn't mad.  I was praying!

delectable

There are simply no words -

Garden Journal

Got the first vegetables planted in the garden today. I'm doing sort of a modified "square foot gardening" style - putting more vegetables in wider rows, and making certain the paths are wide enough to reach both sides. Last year our tomatoes were such a jungle we missed harvesting a bunch that fell rotten because we couldn't get to them without smashing 'em. I've got potatoes and onions and gourds and cucumbers - which really don't need to be accessed on both sides - on the edges of the garden that are surrounded by fence. See, that fence, while vital to keep the deer out, is problematic. On the one hand, it is a trellis of sorts for the vines (pickling cucumbers, apple gourds and luffa gourds), but the 2"x3" squares make it difficult for my fat hands to reach through and snag fat, ripe vegetables. I think if I ever put in another garden I'll model it more on Mel Bartholomew's square foot gardening style - and either fence in the whole area or fence in walkways around it. I dunno.

Yesterday, though, I raked out rows and decided where things would be. I changed my mind about 4 times, but I think I have it worked out now. I planted loads of sweet white onions (vidalia-type), yellow onions, 7 potato sets, 3 tomato plants - sweet millions?- my dad gave me when we went to Norfolk last weekend. I think they will survive - one of them got a little windblown in the back of the truck...and, I guess that was it...in the afternoon I put in cucumbers, corn and gourds along the row to the right - maybe the gourds will use the corn to vine on? I harvested a bunch of rocks that the girls put in the wagon to haul to the creek later...and I planted some hostas in front of the shed/chicken coop. Those were divides from a friend who lives over by the Humpback Bridge.

Anyways, in spite of the "help" from the littles, I was able to get a good start on the garden. The forecast for the next 8 days is rain of some type or another - showers, thunderstorms, whatever, so if things don't get too incredibly soggy I should be off to a good start.

The berry patch....raspberries, blueberries & (wild) strawberries.

pictures

Doesn't this look sooooo good? It was one of the last! I canned the rest of my homemade marinara sauce this morning with the last of the maters.

Next year, I'm going to do sunflowers right. I only had a couple packs of seed; I think these came from Dollar tree and my birdfeeder. Should have planted more, More, MORE!

The bees didn't mind!
See my gourds? They aren't harvested until after the first frost, then I'll hang them up in pantyhoe from the rafters in the attic to dry. For months.

OK, and then last week we went for a short walk over in Falling Spring near the Jackson River Trail. Part of our walk was on an abandoned road and bridge. We saw beautiful wildflowers....

beautiful bugs....look closely at the pink blooms....

more wildlife (allow me to draw your attention to the knees).....

and of course, pure beauty.....

AND -

then it was time to go home.

But I picked a couple handfuls of sumac berries and when we got home we enjoyed some refreshing sumac tea. Mmmmm! Tasty! And so good for you!

Heirloom tomatoes

I had some fresh tomatoes from the arden arranged nicely in my picking basket, and was going to pick some more, when I made the mistake of running inside for "just a minute" to get my camera. This is what I found.

garden

See those cucumbers? Those and many, many more are now pickles - about 10 quarts and a couple pints. In fact, I have another batch of pickles midway through processing now; they are soaking in ice water. I use the recipe on the back of the pickling lime container and they always turn out great. My grandmother loves them, so I think I'll give her 12 jars for Christmas....so she can have a jar a month for the next year :)

Andy's friend Peewee from work sent over a big box of yellow squash, pattypan squash and it looks like a few zucchini. WE canned a bunch of squash from our garden on Sunday, but I'm running low on jars so I think I'll just freeze this. My aunt said that canned squash doesn't have a good taste, too, so that's another reason.

Well, I have a crying baby who is getting over a cold and probably has an ear infection, so I better go and get her to sleep for her first nap. More later!

garden

Here's some pictures of our garden....

That ginormous thing in the foreground is a a sunflower!

Here's a back view....gourds are growing up on what used to be the chicken yard fence, and those are a couple dozen sunflowers beside the back wall under the window.

We've got - I think I remember right - 23 tomato plants, lettuce, cucumbers, zuccini, bush beans, radishes (Hannah's), birdhouse gourds, green gourds and potatoes.

We picked these this morning. I have two big buckets of these cucumbers now marinating in lime, awaiting pickling tomorrow! Think I'll pickle the peppers, too, come to think about it, and probably some of the beans, too. I LOVE pickled green beans....I mean, I LOVE anything pickled!

Except pigs' feet. Haven't gone there - yet!!