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Growing the Unsown

7/14/2017

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I  spend a lot of time in the garden. One of my favorite garden quotes comes from Thomas Fuller. He says “Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there”. I have a perfect example of this in the garden this year. Among the onions there sprouted a single dill plant. As I was doing weeding early in the season I debated on whether or not to pull it. It looked healthy. How the seed got there I have no idea. It would certainly look incongruous among the straight rows of onions. But I could not bring myself to pull it out. So it has remained and has grown into a lovely plant.

But for me, that garden quote pertains to more than just plants in the garden. Life too holds many things that are not of our own making. Things we don’t see coming. Spontaneous events thrown in by other people. Sweet surprises matured from something long forgotten. These things, not sown by us in the orderly rows of our lives, belong there too. To be less hasty in pulling them up makes a fuller garden. They disrupt what we intend but create a more interesting pattern. In the end, like my dill plant, they often turn out be something beautiful.

I am happy I let that dill plant survive. As I weed around it I smile. And I remain open to the disruption of the unsown moments of life.

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Following my Aunts

7/11/2017

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This week I spent a morning canning peaches. Small jars of peach preserves and large jars of spiced peaches will be put in the basement to be used during the long days of winter. Home canning is no longer an essential for us. After all we can walk into a grocery store and buy these items anytime (although I would debate the quality of what I do is better!). But I still love to get my large enamel canning pots out, watch the transition of empty Ball jars into full ones and smell the essence of berries, fruits, vegetables and even vinegar as it fills my kitchen. I ask myself, where was this strange outdated obsession born? I think I know.

When I was a child summer vacation time was “up north” visiting my aunts. These ladies of German heritage were consummate canners. They canned ,what seemed to me as a child, endless orderly rows of canned beauty. On shelves in their basements the treasure was stored. And when we visited they would take me, the city girl, by the hand with an amused look on their faces and lead me down the stairs into that magical land of jams and fruits and meats and pickles. “Pick out anything you want to eat today” were the magical words I waited to hear. And I loved it. Maybe cherries? What could my aunt do with a jar of that chicken and how did she get it in the jar anyway? A crunchy jar of pickles? Oh I had such fun. I’m sure they had no idea that their small act of kindness to a child would plant the seeds of a lifelong pleasure for me. I wish I would have taken a camera to those basements and documented those rows of jars that reflected their skill and ability to feed their families. They thought they were showing me the ordinary. But those memories I have are extraordinary. 

Today I will put my modest number of jars on my basement shelves. And this winter I will visit those same shelves and pick out what I want to eat that day. I am able to create my own small scale land of canning jar magic. And I imagine my aunts are smiling.

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Sunday Morning

7/8/2017

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Sunday mornings get off to a slower start. Usually my better half makes breakfast. I get to sip coffee, maybe walk out to the garden or do a quick chore while he cooks. Sunday breakfast food is also something more special. There is actually time to cook something as we are not running off to daily work in opposite directions. 

I looked at my plate last week and it was so pretty. The food looked delicious and I was really hungry. But it is more than just the food. It is taking the time to relax and move at a slower pace that does me so much good. Out of necessity I have often worked multiple jobs, looked after kids and shared household responsibilities. When life is so full of demands for so many years it is possible to forget how to just be in the moment. And that would be a tragedy. So I am grateful for Sunday morning and the chance it gives me to be mindful of how small slivers of time are meant to be enjoyed.

​So this weekend take some time to find your “Sunday morning” moment.

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