Which Comes First? Giving Life to a Garden or A Garden Giving Life?

     Recently, I ran into an old friend in the town where we lived for 35 years. As we stood talking in the produce section, she said, "Your yellow Lady Banks roses are blooming like crazy." Twenty  years ago, I had planted three yellow Lady Banks rose bushes along our driveway, as a screen between us and our new neighbor, the municipal golf course. Antique Rose Emporium said in the their catalog: "Hardy, grows to 12-20 feet tall, space 15 feet apart. Hardy climber. Blooms once." I was just beginning my journey of becoming a perennial gardener and this old friend was one of my expert teachers along with my neighborhood small nursery. I smiled and replied, "Yes, I'm so glad the people who bought our property kept the roses.  Again, I have planted 3 bushes along our farm driveway as a screen between our neighbor's property and us. I need more bushes, tho, but I'll get them."
      I came home and took a picture of my Lady Yellow Banks I had planted two years ago. They aren't any where near the 20 feet height of the bushes I planted twenty years ago, but they are blooming like crazy this year. I was encouraged, so I ordered two more from Antique Rose Emporium. I estimate I'll need at least seven bushes along our farm driveway.
     At the farm, I haven't planted as many perennials as I did at my previous home because God has done such a beautiful job planting wildflowers, trees and native prairie grasses. After my eldest son's death thirty years ago, gardening became an obsession with me. I felt like I had to give life to my garden and in return it gave  life to me. Now, after my father's death, I'm feeling the need to give more life on the farm than God has already given us. I ordered an herb book I did not have, found my old perennial books, and my obsession has begun again. I will plot, plan, create in my creative journal. Then, ask my garden wishes be granted.
     This year for Mother's Day, I have requested my gift: help me plant my rose bushes and build a small fence and gate in my small herb garden. In my former home garden, many of my planted rose bushes, flower bed creations, stones laid, and dirt hauled to my gardens were gift wishes granted to me by my husband and three sons. So, my garden's wishes begin being granted again...

Yellow Lady Banks

Prairie Larkspur

Prairie Grass 

Texas Daisy

Purple Coneflower

Pink Evening Primrose

Indian Blanket

What is the state of "being"?

A new calf is always a sign spring has come to the farm. I never tire seeing these creatures being born without a human sterilizing their hands with latex gloves, wearing masks, or blue surgical gowns to help the birth be easier.  As I reread Madeline L'Engle's, Walking on Water, she reminds me all creating is of God. Surely, calves being born is one of those God creations.

And how am I creating these days? After a late summer of cancer diagnosis for Joe, my father's hospice care and then Dad's  October death, it felt like my creating was not creating but keeping doctor and cancer treatment appointments, arranging for hospice care, a funeral, and then cancer treatment recovery care. Where is the creation in this? Then, I remember Martha washing Jesus' feet. It was such a simple and humbling act by Martha, but an act that had to be documented by one of Jesus'  disciples. Madeline L'Engle says we must learn to "be" in order to create. We must "be" to be able to listen to God's quiet voice or not but to be a state of creation. Perhaps, my creation state was in the humbling acts of appointments, phone calls and texts, and in person arrangements. I know at the time of these acts, I was not thinking I was creating, but "doing" at a frantic pace. Time to make a conscious space to create.

I've decided to create on my blog and to continue writing my childhood memoir for the year of 1963. I've joined a writing group to help me focus, be motivated, and be disciplined.  And I've started back in the practice of "being". I must make time for this as Madeline L'Engle writes in her book in order to create art.

"Being" is not writing or blogging but in a physical space that is in nature or quiet space inside a home, library, or church and sitting.  As I am "being" on my porch, I focus on the wind rustling the trees and I watch the limbs sway. I watch rain clouds move in the sky in a constant drift. Questions come, "Will it rain tonight? Tomorrow? Is the big tree on the hill alive or dead. Why did it die?" Questions that won't change the course of history, but questions that may or may not be answered. The important part of the questions is they are "being" asked. What is accomplished by asking questions that may or may not be answered? I've taken the time to ask questions while "being".

The Farmstead is complete.....

After a year of seven day work weeks and 12-20 hour work days, The Farmstead is 95% complete. One wedding reception, one wedding, a baby shower and a bridal shower have  taken place. To say this construction was done by a family village would be an understatement. Oma's job was the easiest of anyone, keeping grand babies while mommy, daddy, Poppa Joe, Pawpaw, Mimmi, Uncle Devin, and others worked to create this project. 

Since, I had the easiest job, why was it so hard to work on my blog? Hmmm, I guess I'm not what I used to be?!? Keeping up with Hadley, age 4 and Hudson, age 2 has been a test of my mature energy. I have to say, tho, grandchildren are the cherry on top to life. 

It is nap time for Oma's babies, Hadley and Hudson and blog time for Oma. I've wanted to be a writer all my life, ever since I read Little Women...Now is the time and it is all that "they" have said it is: nerve wracking that someone else will read my words and the words will be in the wrong order, incorrect grammar and punctuation will dance on the pages, and the meaning will be lost in the dance. I write anyway. It is the call of my soul.