A Season for Sowing

There hasn't been much time or even thought about sewing these days, I've been too busy sowing.  It took me all last week to finish planting our garden and I realized I must have been hungry when I ordered the all those seeds because what started out as plans for a simple garden, one that would ease our family into the experience, turned into over 7,000 sq feet of cultivated earth to care for.  This was hard sweaty work, even more so with a sleeping baby on my back.

Most of the progress was made during the hours when Paul was able to slip away from his desk but the romantic vision I had of the whole family working together never accumulated.  In most cases it was just me alone in the garden, once in a while calling out, begging for helping hands or at least calling to be reassured someone had an eye on George.  I thought of all the times I abandoned my own mom while she worked so hard in the garden and I felt so sad, I even called her to tell her I was sorry for that.

  

Here I am on day 4 or 5 looking so tired and, honestly, very irritable.  I'm all suited up not so much for the dirt but for sun protection.  The hat was a Mother's day gift I picked out for myself and the overalls were a gift from Kaley.   

At one point I felt so alone and overwhelmed I thought to just lay in the freshly tilled soil and do "dirt angels".  Laying there in the dirt I looked up at the sky and asked "what did I get myself into?", "why am I doing this?", "what kind of seeds have I sown in my children that they are not even helping me?"  This kind of discouragement followed and grew within me over the course a couple days.  Charles hit a peak in his colic, we had another injured hen to care for, I found poison ivy in the garden, I discovered ants were getting into the bee hive and beetles on the asparagus, the children were fighting, Paul was consumed with work stress and the goats had dropped significantly in their milk production.  I honestly wondered if I was ruining everything living thing in my path.  

It all came to a head early one morning as I milked the goats, my tears were as warm and heavy as the milk hitting the pail.  Then the words gently came to me, "Look unto me in every thought, doubt not, fear not" (D&C 6:36).  So that is what I did, literally.  Every time a discouraging thought threatened to overcome me I looked up towards the sun, repeated the verse and consciously disabled the power of discouragement within me.  With this came greater clarity and direction.

I thought of the funny cartoon my sister drew, then changed the words, "lead me, guide me, plant beside me", "lead me, guide me, weed beside me", "lead me, guide me, milk beside me", "lead me guide me, fold beside me", "lead me, guide me, cook beside me", "lead me, guide me, clean beside me".  I realized I had been pushing my children away because I wanted things done in a certain way, I also realized that it was better to do this kind of work with only one or two of them at a time.  In addition, it came to my attention that the trick of "The Little Red Hen" does not work when you are planting kale, cabbage and beets.  So I let them help where they were most excited with the expected the results.

Here Peter is watering the sunflower house that he and Clara worked together to plant.

Meanwhile, Maryanna was serving up warm mud pies.

And later Clara helped me plant some marigolds.

Our work of planting was completed!  Below is a portion of it.  Now after I catch up on laundry, the work to water, weed and tend to it will begin and we will do so armed with realistic expectations as we look to the sun with hope of a delicious harvest.