Greener Grass On The Outside, Other Side Of The Fence.
Maybe the pasture is not large enough to meet the grass needs for the number of horses crowded in it.
So they get hungry, restless. Start to feel tempted and check out the neighborhood. Out west when taking the youngest to college last year and driving the red jeep called Sally. The one that four kids learned how to master the road with, Elliot and I saw a lot of wide open grass land.
Thirsty, over baked in the ceramic kiln like heat conditions unlike Maine’s weather, climate. Out west in places it takes three acres to support the four legged animals. In Aroostook County, the same cow or horse can do quite nicely with one acre due to better conditions. Less heat, more water, sometimes better soils.
More is not always better. Like life when the more we get, the more we want. Kind of like beat the buffet gluttony to get your money’s worth thinking. That habit can lead to how are you going to top that one, to get beyond same old same old to maintain fireworks life excitement.
Looking for greener grass can happen when what you have to survive on is lacking, not enough.
But unless an animal is a gypsy, renegade and just likes to take to the open road like a hobo jumping a rumbling by freight train, they stay content. In the pasture because they are getting what they need. Are peaceful, well fed. As for gratitude, not sure if cows, horses do that and will get back to you after a little more research.
People are like those animals and charging through a fence to get to something greener starts because of unmet needs. Food is a pretty basic need like air, water, shelter, family, love. Often what you are lacking can be accommodated with communication, negotiation. Or acceptance that what you expect from others is going to have to come from within yourself. Or some of the needs no one, not you, not others can provide either. Only God can.
Is your happiness external, showy, a lifestyle needing wheelbarrows of dead green Presidents to provide?
That kind of happy feeling will not last. But the inner joy that radiates from within because you have all you need, maybe not all you thought you wanted is the 180 degree direction some of us need to take. There is a turn around, reverse direction jug handle just up ahead. Get on your knees, look for it. Don’t miss the cue.
When you take a trip in to the islands and are looking for a tour guide for the day, check the van or taxi dash. You see lots of Bibles, but look for a well worn, heavily used one. That is your man.
On a family vacation trip to Jamaica, with the kid jammed van we negotiated a price, hammered out an itinerary and after beaches, shopping made one more stop. I asked if the driver would kindly drive us in to the heart of the island, away from what only the tourist see. To show us where he lives. He seemed surprised, then smiled and said sure.
Twisting, winding, narrow roads that went straight up and then the bottom dropped out of them made all of us question the logic of my request.
Other vans, taxis with “toot toot” passed us with not much more than a few sheets of paper tolerances between our door handles and mirrors. All drivers friendly, waving, honking in their own unique style, rhythm, tempo.
The “home sweet home” our driver was proud to point out had no windows, was built of odds and ends of cinderblock, mishaped dimension wood. Surrounded by a collection of other rag tag motley affair homes with the same lack of repair. Flapping rusted metal roofing challenged too many times by frequent hurricanes in the local weather forecast.
Scrawny dogs roamed the roadway. You sensed they were the villages, not any one in particular that kept track of their shots, flea collars, wormer trips to the vets. But the kids remarked, noticed that all the villagers were happy. Poor and did not know it? Or grateful for what they did have. Never lamenting what they did not.
It was not a case of ignorance is bliss.
That they did not know any different. It was because all the glitz, shiny colors and expensive hooplah, trappings were not an option. And they were freed up to dig, search deeper within themselves.
Gaining self satisfaction. Raising self esteem and gaining a sense of self worth radiating obvious joy from within out. Not expecting others around them, events to unfold for fleeting happiness from outside.
The kids noticed and pointed out that they have nothing yet the islanders have everything they need.
And despite poverty hardships, are freed up in a material sense to concentrate, focus intently on the areas of real value in life, relationships with others that all of us need.
If you are a loner, do it all yourself self contained, open up that shell. Ask for help, extend it as a good servant. Be more aware of others. Examine why that shell was created in the first place.
And about that pasture you tend. Fix, mend your own fences, tend your own pastures. Keep anything you cherish, protect under watchful eye with greater awareness of what happens if your pasture is not kept green, healthy for greater meaning out of your life of service to others. Get on your knees, water, fertilize, love it like your special personal garden for greener pastures.
Maine, the right setting to live a rich, full natural life surrounded by four seasons beauty.
The Maine Farm Barn Is The Center Piece Of The Land, Buildings Around It.
The west side of the ME farm barn had a sill kick out, needing attention.
A foundation component, something supporting anything of importance or as big as a barn is a very critical element to not neglect. Without maintenance, protecting with vital repairs the big old Maine farm barns go to their knees. That is why many have become extinct like large lumbering dinosaurs that used to roam the Earth.
But the repair, rebuilding requires you to put down whatever you are carrying. To free up your arms, open your heart and mind to study the under pinnings. To undercover what caused the barn to squat, the wall sill plate to kick out of alignment.
Because if you don’t address that wall foundation issue crying out for repair, the other three walls, roof and intrastructure all tied to it are affected.
Will go in to decline faster because all of the parts of the barn work in harmony, unity, oneness like a good marriage. Other areas of your life are like that if too much focus is on this area, none or very little on these other critical sections is not provided.
Do you measure twice, three times or more and cut once? Take, make the time to talk over with others in your life affected by a strong or weak foundation? To build or repair it together? That you need input from to seek answers to what others think is needed. The how and why of how come the foundation is crumbling, moving beyond how the original creator build it so perfectly.
Foundations put in right, protected from water seeping in around it that in a climate like Maine can freeze.
Pushing a structure apart with great brutal force need your full attention. Help from above. So do protective roof eaves that are designed to shed water away from the foundation. Or when shingles, metal coverings wear out and fail if not renewed, kept healthy, maintained begin to leak.
Seeping water can rot, decay, cause mold and mildew and create from little holes large openings from the top down if not addressed. And then eventually attacking the root of the problem, a vulnerable foundation in trouble caused from neglect, lack of loving care.
Have you spent enough time on your knees, digging, probing, removing sharp stones and rotten debris that can surround, build up around your most important foundation? To make sure proper drainage, filtering of the storm run off does not pool, fester, remain causing an under water, soggy, stagnant environment.
You need high and dry conditions in life to rest, recharge when under attack.
To keep from getting water logged or from being sucked under if it gets too deep and you no longer can touch the bottom.
I fixed the barn west wall sill the right way. Expensive up front, but an investment that will last in the long run to protect the old Maine barn. That my family has cross cabled, hurricane braced for extra support to protect the old girl. The big tall barn, the cornerstone of the entire collection of Maine farm buildings.
The repair was not done without study, thought, consideration because of the tremendous weight it is expected to support. Knowing life, weather does not get easier in Northern Maine, that you and I have to become stronger instead.
The relationship foundations you are entrusted to build, maintain, put on this Earth with the purpose of serving are sacred.
Do you put the time and attention, the initial groundwork in to them to make sure they survive, thrive?
Relationships are fragile, delicate and need strong protective skeleton bones of the building in place. Carefully hand hewn beams carved out to intricately fit together with pegs, dowel fasteners.
Made to last, with no gaps, nothing out of square and true, arrow lazer line straight. To exact tolerances engineered not to need rebuilding if treated with respect. Like the pyramids of Egypt that still stand and look like the day they were finally done after years, decades, lifetimes of effort.
When your foundation gets out of whack and you open up your heart and soul to see why.
Not retreat to blaming others in your life for sadness. Where you neglected, had blind eyes and closed ears. Missed the cues because no blue print, no couseling or education, instruction going in happened. You had no idea of how important this foundation was, needed to be to survive the storms of life.
The foundation you build your marriage, family, life around has to be planted on convictions bed rock solid. And you never getting comfortable or letting anything slide, missed that signals the warning signs you are braced for because of critical planning going in.
Take the time needed to keep that foundation you build on healthy. The one you don’t want to tear down, start over. Have to replace down the road. It needs to be kept high and dry, protected, sacred. Maine, a little more aware because we keep life simple. Revolving around what matters most… Foundation relationships with others around you.
A Brand New Arena In Houlton Maine With No Loss Of Life. Whew.
Maine parents with hockey players in the family know about dedication to their kids passionate sport.
When the Houlton Maine ice arena caved in from a too heavy snow load in 1998 much good came out of the building collapse.
First and foremost, the timing of that winter ice arena cave in is on top of my life blessings to be grateful for list.
I am so glad that my sons Elliot and Alexander’s brother-against-brother hockey game was not played. Because if Houlton Parks And Recreation Director Gary Edwards had not called it off, a local diaster, biggest area tragedy would have happened.
The two boys along with many other team players were scheduled to be center ice for the game face off and fast paced hockey offense and defensive maneuvers. At the very same time the arena collapsed, became a jumble, crumble of twisted I-beams and other building debris.
My mind can horrifically, vividly see youth hockey players, fans, coaches, family members in the stand, staff and even the referees dressed like zebras among the casualties.
I can picture over taxed funeral home directors scrambling to dig out bodies of loved ones, folks that all were at the game for one purpose. The love of a spirited hockey match up rink side.
You can not watch a hockey game sitting down either. Just for the record. And the best place to be in the game is working it. Annoucing the goals and penalties assessed for time in the “sin bin”. Keeping the books, running the clock, watching over the penalty boxes or tossing in a new puck when the game black circle goes in to the stands.
At this vantage point by the two opposing hockey teams and across from the fans, you can see, smell, hear, feel the reaction to a call.
Or witness what you don’t see in the stands that happens on the bench. Appreciating the intense hustle of your best line in the back and forth up close see saw tug of war.
How the coach keeps a lid on all the raw pumping adrenalin, emotions, tempers that flare when a player gets checked in to the boards, hooked, slashed, boarded or intentional unnecessary roughness call that gets missed. Can you say retaliation? Sure you can. I knew you could. That’s part of hockey too.
Being way way behind but the team as a unit stepping it up.
Moving their feet quicker, playing the weak side heavier, crashing the goalie. Taking full advantage of a clever pass when the other team’s defenseman player is screening, blinding the net minder wearing the same color jersey.
Playing all out with passion for the sport with the clicking lighted clock by the American and Canadian flag on each side like you are still going to win. And in some games the tustled hair, sweating players with all the expensive soon to be outgrown, passed down protective gear on do. Surprising everyone in the building as you come out in to blinding sunlight during an early morning winter morning parking lot.
That is one big take away life lesson for the team, coaches, family and fans that provides hope, dreams, stamina to stick with anything in life. Apply to your own up and down struggle of sunshine and a few dark clouds. Through thick and thin. Look for the good, stay positive and surrender to impossible situations you can not fix but God can.
The second blessing in the loss of the original Houlton Maine ice arena was it happened during a federally declared disaster.
So a big chunk of FEMA money from Washington thrown in the pot with the building insurance check meant the kids were on their way to a new arena. And with tons of donated materials, free labor the entire community of hockey fans supplied as they converged on the building project. Like Charlie Brown’s friends that came through on the scrawny pine tree.
The old arena had no ice unless Mother Nature felt sorry on the hockey program and her pity provided a sheet of natural hard surface. All to often with the old arena, the programs were stunted. At a disadvantage with other teams with artificial playing surfaces. That had weeks more “artificial ice” in their diet, running in their veins.
So back to the Me In Maine blog post title that got you in here read read reading like the wheels on the bus go round and round. I took many a 4AM trip to clear Canadian immigration going over. The same dog and pony questioning procedure on the way back coming in to Maine on the US side of the border crossing.
Our kid’s home ice for two seasons was at the Hartland New Brunswick Canada hockey arena.
Used like relatives with no place to go moving in to share your supper table. Getting a turn with the remote TV changer for a spell.
Or like a church lost in a fire that during rebuilding from the ashes up, gets a small window of time on Sunday to utilize another place of worship that offers the same Christian services. Shares the altar, organ, organist and all those pews for a non interrupted worship experience til the new church hammering, nailing is done.
Younger teams get the lousier early, early cock a doodle doo times as part of the right of passage from Mites to Midgets minor hockey league team progression.
But it is all still spending time with your kids as a parent. The kids don’t mind the time and just love the team sport of hockey. So do you as a parent with an Excursion loaded with players and gear. Some your own kids, always a few stow aways on board.
I had the best talks with my sons Alexander and Elliot on the hockey circuit. All six soap box derby racing. Or skiing kids where the same things happens on a lift after every run. And after a hard fought hockey win, lose or tied game, listening to the laughter. Banter because of a victory, a championship title trophy.
Or the licking their wounds and admitting they got beat by a team that was more talented, disciplined or just plain outskated them. Worked harder at practice. That was apparent to all in the arena witnessing the game from the drop of the first face off puck. All the way to the two over times, the final buzzer after three periods of back and forth, could go either way see saw ice battle.
Hockey is a family sport with a big boost of finances and time year round from parents.
A little more effort because unlike basketball gyms, tennis courts, or baseball diamonds that most communities have, ice arena require travel. They don’t grow on trees. Every area is not blessed with an arena like we are so proud of in my home town of classy Houlton Maine.
Houlton Hodgdon Blackhawks Beat Bangor ME Rams Hockey Team Video
Hockey, like skiing that all the kids enjoyed from the time they were wee little, is a sport for life. My two boys played hockey on the college level. And all those early morning trips to Hartland New Brunswick Canada when we had no local arena, the summer camps, Houlton Hodgdon Blackhawk hockey weekend games at the Alfond rink where the Maine Black Bears play.
Maine, kids get a great upbringing and most of it involves activities out doors. Not parked in front of the electric babysitter. And parents put them first, have fun raising them along with the rest of the village.
Every Wednesday I bump in to an old Maine friend named Slim.
For years I have followed him, what he had to say so simply, succintly, with just few timely words. Slim is a wiry, skinny shadow of a fellow, like me desperately in need of an extra ten pounds. But who not like me, says what he has to say simply. Not long winded, but keenly focused, to the point when he does speak up.
Slim is a town crier of sorts.
A Paul Revere in a good way with news to remind local folks that he cares about greatly around him that this weekend is the annual Meduxnekeag River ME Canoe race. Showing a glimpse of himself paddling through the white water for all he is worth to support a local cause, celebrate spring at the same time.
A friendly reminder for others to consider digging out the red, green canoe or blue, yellow or whatever color kayak you have not in use. Stored in the garage, neglected. That maybe you should get wet, out on the river water. Find a paddling partner.
Slim is active, has high metabolism.
You see him running in local fund raising marathon road races for a good cause. Suggesting you ought to take in a McGill’s outdoor community band concert, to support the local movie theatre, Cary Library.
You could call Slim a clothes horse of sorts.
Has an extensive collection of promotionally provided, advertising disclaimed items. With many sets of black, white, shades of gray ear muffs, winter knit hat and scarf sets. Cool head and wrist bands, high top Chuck Taylor sneakers, and sporting gear ranging from hockey skates, down hill skis, motorboats, baseball bats, basketballs, soap box derby cars.
Slim is slim, trim because he is rarely idle, his mind is in high rpm. He is passionate about his home town, having the right kind of fire in his belly about youth activities. And promoting all kinds of local worthwhile outdoor recreational events being in Maine full time. Not just for what only one vacation week a year can provide. Slim considers himself very lucky to live in a small Maine town. Does not keep it a secret.
Slim gives advice about when storms happen in your life, to adjust your sails to take full advantage of those high blustery winds. He grew up on a Maine farm, felt lean, mean poor potato years that hit below the belly, are like sucker punches. But became stronger because of it.
An eternal optimist, a dreamer with a practical side.
He learned early on not to expect life to get easier. But that the pathway to get more deeper meaning from setbacks that are really lessons, stepping stones means opening up your eyes, ears, hearts and souls. Surrendering. Considering others first, keeping his eyes looking up for guidance, needed direction.
Slim is not afraid to get his hands dirty, to dig in Mother Earth. Is a gardener of sorts. Knows the immense importance to tend and spend daily time in his private, spiritual garden. And what can happen if he does not and weeds, thistles, thorns, sharp stones quickly take over an untended garden.
Win or lose, Slim encourages local sports teams, any one in educational, music program competitions to give it your best shot.
Hold your head up high and know you gave your personal best. That the entire local community is proud of your accomplishments and you should be too!
Sometimes Slim is seen in public glimpses dribbling the orange round ball. Hunkered down with his hockey stick on the sheet of polished ice. Winding up for a lazer slap shot in the five hole to hit the twine under, between the metal bars. Slim is not the best athelete but works hard to improve, to encourage others that are talented in the local area.
With Slim it’s not about being perfect.
But to get living not dying. But more important to strive to be kinder, gentler, loving, humble, meek and mild. There is a playful side when you see him barrel racing on a horse to remind anyone around him about an upcoming horse show.
Eating cotton candy, munching on a fresh dough boy or an extra Italian sausage loaded, smothered with onions and peppers of all colors after watching a dusty, smokey Demolition Derby performance. Slim is not stuck in his home and gets involved in local events. Covers them a tad like a cub reporter.
Slim wishes anyone that can read him, he is pretty black and white, a Merry Christmas wearing his Santa hat or reindeer antlers. A happy, bow your head and be grateful Thanksgiving in front of a bountiful table of food of all sorts. Or wearing a pointed party hat with the always too tight kid sized elastic that stings your neck, blowing a noise maker to wish everyone a Happy Safe New Year.
Slim choses his words carefully, tries to only open his pie hole after considerable thought with week long pauses between what he does think needs saying. Opening his heart and mind up to ponder, consider and study, to listen first. I could learn much from his example being from two very verbal parents in a boisterous household of four boys growing up. Better at talking than listening.
I am an excitable boy that could benefit from working way way harder at relaxation, pauses and have taken a slew of steps that are working wonders to create a greater inner peace. Check out some of the earlier blog posts and sense, whoa. Something is up. Like the kids say, “it’s all good”.
Slim with his cheerleader megaphone is a rah rah rah, hoot, holler and root for his local area to brag up the many home grown special events.
Like the largest soap derby race city in the country for five years running. That is a testiment to the importance kids have, the area committment parents, neighbors show in their volunteer efforts.
There is nothing stronger than the heart of a local volunteer, especially when kids are the recipients of the effort.
Slim is a big kid with a soft spot in his heart for children. Slim in a not pushey way encourages people that he meets to get off the couch, go climb Mt Katahdin, to hike and bike trails, to snow sled, ATV and get out in to nature. To support local ME Rotary Auctions. Or Moosestompers Winter Celebration or investing in new chairs for the local Houlton ME performing arts center.
Skiing down one side of a local me mountain or hiking up the other side. Slim beams with pride about the largest soap box derby race so many worked on for the award five years running in his small Maine home town.
Wonder what Slim will talk about the next time I see him? Slim appears weekly as a cartoon in the local Houlton Pioneer Times, the only newspaper in the world interested in the Shiretown, County seat of Aroostook County. Get to Maine, small towns where people are connected, need each other and appreciate the outdoor four season beauty all year long. Not just one week a year on vacation.
Whatever Floats Your Boat, ‘er Kayak, Make Time To Get Out On The Water!
Easing up, pulling back and relaxing to enjoy life is easier with an empty nest when you are a full time single parent.
When your life was overbooked with kids, jobs, new relationships, it is very simple to miss cues. It is not as easy as it looks on television, in romance novels. Life is a non-fiction exercise right up to “The End” and the fade to black.
Getting too busy or comfortable can be dangerous too.
If all seems well and good at the moment. Brace yourself. Life’s rollercoaster challenges will test you with its twisting, turning, climbing, plunging ride. It all happens right on schedule in your life. Consider your role in the events too.
Don’t rely just on fleeting feelings or at the moment expectations seemingly being met in relationships either. It takes time, road miles and the stresses of real life struggles to see a person’s true colors. Including your own colors.
The right person will make you always happy thinking is unfair to that other person.
Life is not story book, living happily ever after without major effort from within, on your knees. They just signed on to a full time job on top of other irons needing tending in their fire. And will wear out, get exhausted and then retreat as you point out they are slacking, not meeting your needs.
This scolding will cause insecurity, resentment, lower self esteem and then communication to cease and bitterness to bloom adding to the confusion. There is another way.
Some of our needs are meant to be met by ourselves.
Many can only be met by God, not another human being no matter how well intentioned. At each stage of the rollercoaster life ride, you go through tunnels of joys like having children to raise and nurture. Other milestones like weddings, graduations, your first home, job promotions, service in church and your community to give something back.
But along with successes, death, sickness, setbacks happen to prove what you are made of, how strong your faith is. Diversions to hard places that test you to see if you were raised for unknown territories could mean no prior expectations thought out, no blueprint planning sessions or counseling leaves you in the dark worried, scared and quicker to lash out and turn to look for who to blame. Look within yourself.
Losing your parents is something all of us do.
Some don’t know who their real parents are. Or lost them when very young or have them but with weak or cut off connections which is a sad situation. But if your parents spent time with the kids visiting grave sites and sharing found memories of the departed you are related to while they added flowers, tidying up the stones, everything about death becomes accepted.
Death. It’s part of life, the final season for the short time on earth. Death helps us appreciate life when it is a loved one you saw faithful to the end. My parents were and the way they passed on helps me, my kids to realize be faithful, on your knees but never scared of death. And to get busy living not busy dying talks they have with you kick in.
At the Maine farm house with many a baked bean supper by the Jotul wood cook stove, my parents, kids were together. Learning, sharing, spending time together. Talking, discussing everything including death and how important it is to live in the day. To make today count by not lamenting something that happened yesterday.
You miss today stuck in yesterday.
And if you blame others for a poor past, make sure you don’t make the same mistakes again that contributed to it. You don’t look up and trust God that better days are in your future if you stay stuck in yesterday.
Move on, get grateful, full of hope and trust that through out your life you have been way way more fortunate than you deserve. And things can get even better if you dig in, get on your knees, die to self and think of being a better shaped servant for others.
Family is everything and older members have so much wisdom for the younger ones.
And out of the mouths of babes, you learn so greatly from your kids. And their full of goodness, unique keep it simple perspective. All adding up making you become a better person showing kids the right from wrong and it rubbing off as a reminder for yourself in the process.
Strong connections, life lessons and family talks, sharing that help your day to day. It is not just an event that now only happens on The Waltons or Little House On The Prairie reruns.
Those out on the porch with a coffee, kool-aid, iced tea and a fresh cookie talks are the meat of life’s lessons to glean, save steps and learn from. The rocking chair talks in the kitchen at coffee or tea time were better than any 55 minute total stranger paid professional therapy time. Enjoy, embrace, utilize your family and be glad you have them. See the joy the connection can create from within for all of you.
I miss my parents but know they are in a better place, not suffering. We all enjoyed them up in to their eighties with very active lives, a sixty year marriage. My kids benefited greatly from our day to day involvement whether it was Pizza Hut on Thursday night, picnics and camp fire cooking at a myriad of spots Maine is dotted with.
And unlike my three brothers who had families that did not live 1.5 miles away and see them daily, I think my kids got so much extra education far beyond what I, the local schools, church provided due to active, involved loving grandparents.
Older family members can prepare you for upcoming set backs and the education does not stop at eighteen or when they graduate from college four years later. The parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins too can help you see the cues you need to be aware of in any life situation. One of the best lessons I learned growing up on the farm with lots of weather, market set backs is be resourceful.
Be hopeful and see something good in the chain of events.
And to attack the problem, not the person if individuals were involved. Or take ownership if it was me, don’t keep making the same mistake. In a relationship, you need cues from the other person and if they stop caring, stop communicating, it is like a heart monitor that the sound and scope are turned off. Hard to know what is needed for treatment.
So can your church family if you are willing to open up, share and just listen. Nothing you go through is unique to you. We all need each other and grow up together to give our life more rich, fulfilling meaning.
Try to focus on your entire life, give attention to more than just a few areas of it.
Keep the balance, look and listen for the cues that present themselves if you are not too hurry scurry, preoccupied to see and hear them. Provide needed recreational pauses in your life to get rich enjoyment out of it. It is not just work, work, work, nursing home, funeral home. Can be so much more if you turn your hearts, eyes and ears skyward to ask God to show you your purpose. Where you may have missed a slew of cues needed to connect your life “dots”.
Maine Home Gardens, More Than Food Is What You Get Fed. Get On Your Knees.
If you, me were hungry, without food we would appreciate it more.
We are all hungry, starving in many ways and may not realize it. Not know what is missing. The cure is an inside job.
Growing up on a Maine farm, my family like earlier generations knew the art of producing food for others.
Everything in farming dependent on factors outside our work ethic like weather, the market. Our skills to plant, cultivate, harvest a new crop each year meant possessing perseverance, discipline, plenty of hope.
For everything there is a season. And like the Red Sox, a new schedule to plant again meant newness, an opportunity to begin again fresh. But your own personal garden requires a different approach than large fields mass producing food. It’s special, personal, spiritual. Not growing just one crop like potatoes and a give it a rest rotation crop of grain. Lots of things have to be planted in that personal home garden. Tended, cared for and guided like a marriage. Or raising a family with kind, loving care. To provide needed home grown nourishment for your family table.
Food to feast on that you bow your head and appreciate, are grateful for and say blessings over not just at a handful of special holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter.
Unlike third world impoverished countries, we don’t all really appreciate the bounty of food that shows up three times or more a day in this country. Most of us have never gone without, been truly empty, hungry.
For starters, similar to your life, our personal gardens begin with preparing the soil to provide the foundation to build on. Like your home, healthy safe clean warm loving surroundings for the seed everything starts with just like you and me to germinate and eventually take root. Shoot skyward. We all need to keep looking upward.
To teach your kids to put the time in to tending their own personal gardens someday. To make them have daily pauses built in to their busy schedules. For priorities to get their hearts, minds, souls open for the same kind of needed nourishment for peace, contentment, love. To see what a labor of pure love for others looks like, demonstrated. The best part of a personal garden is giving the abundance of produce away to others to enjoy too.
There needs to be love shown inside not just outside the home. So your children have plenty of good clean water to drink, wash and bath with for cleansing. Lots of essential fertilizer applied in encouragement, guidance, affirmation and tough love to make sure they do more than just survive but prosper. Are grateful, cheerful, not boastful, not selfish and realize their purpose to serve others while here on Earth. Through out their lives to share their talents, skills, abilities to make the community, their homes, the world around them a better place. We need each other, learn and love together.
The sunshine in your home, like your personal garden is critical for the seeds, everything to start germinating. To sprout, to kick start the beginning of their life cycle. Removing rocks that Jack Frost creates a new crop of yearly means your life personal gardening does not get easier with practice. But you get stronger from experiences, good and bad. To weather the storms and develop a deeper meaning, appreciation in your life. If you are not busy living, you are dying.
Grass, thorns, golden rod, thistle weeds can choke, retard a garden so not having too big, a too demanding, expansive one that you can not manage is crucial.
To provide a sod free, smooth fine dirt bed to plant the seeds. And like kids that are as different as snowflakes, some seeds need more special attention. Greater spacing in the garden when planting to have the critical room to become productive, to prosper and do well. To have value, worth.
Like in life that you need to have physicals and annual job reviews to see how you are doing, your personal garden needs the same deep examination. To plan where the seeds you are going to plant go. To establish an order, a blueprint priority of what is important. To develop a balance so the entire garden like your life is being fed what it needs to produce a healthy supply of produce. Like a rich, fulfilling life of service to others. Love and kindness demonstrated with a gentle spirit.
And in that personal garden that you spend time daily on your knees tending, that you make a priority for your mental, physical, spiritual health, other things need to be introduced to protect it. Marigolds, scarecrows, hanging plastic swinging owls and fencing is needed to guard it from predators, invasions, destruction. Keeping things that are not going to help that garden out means constant monitoring. Vigilance to make sure it stays healthy.
Basking in the sunshine and you with the watering can, adding the right mix of encouraging fertilizer side dressed to increase the size, yield of the potential all of us like fruit and vegetables have. And maybe don’t learn about our skills until late in the gardening game. It is never too late to catch up. It is sad that some never get in the garden.
Is your personal garden like the rest of your emphasis in life put out front and showy, impressive to call attention to it with grandness?
Large and opulent with hired gardeners, fountains spurting and picture perfect manicured? Or tucked away out of sight, small, humble and placed in a quiet, hidden protective spot so you can be alone tending it without public attention?
As you listen to the small still voice inside your heart, mind, soul. That mixes in with the sounds of song birds, buzzing bees. As delicate butterflies float and land on the plant next to you. While you move forward to prune, transplant crowded vegetables needing your attention to other locations to have their better place in the sun. To provide them a better home that fosters growth, fruit, a purpose for nourishment to be enjoyed by someone else.
Garden seed spacing, elbow room, not crowded or too jammed in. So the garden will have the proper seedling spacing. For the greater good of the entire garden to maximize its return in food return. That you ultimately share with others. That is one demonstrated random act of kindness, love. Feeding someone who is hungry, needy. Watch their eyes light up when big shiny green peppers, large red juicy, earthy beef stake tomatoes, a baker’s dozen ears of farm fresh corn gets delivered by you to their home. Left with a kind note and smiley face.
You get it. You lift your head and see what others without gardens, not on their knees daily miss.
Shoppers too hurried that zip in and out of automatic doors. Frantically filling expensive carts with genetically altered, sprayed and gassed with who knows what food from who knows where. That is food purchased at the tail end of the movie from outside. Those folks miss the entire excercise of being on your knees, the struggle with pests, weather, bristering son and hard driving winds, rains. The same kind your life gets tested with to see what you are made up. That improve you.
You are raising home grown food that develops slowly, watching it grow on the vine. Trained, tended, watered and hoed by you for you, your family. And shared with other local folks who appreciate, need the rich in essential vitamins and nutrients produce to survive and live another day.
Like people soils are different too.
Some of us are more dedicated in our daily gardening routine. Work harder daily to prepare out inner personal garden “soil”. To produce better growing conditions for inner peace, contentment, joy, humility, humbleness, meekness. Thinking of others makes these types of gardeners better servants. To clearly see their purpose, talents, skills and abilities in this short life on planet Earth.
The best part of your personal garden you raise from start to finish is giving away the excess produce. The vegetables, fruit, flowers that you gladly deliver to others around you to enjoy is the best part. Kindness, sharing, reaching out to others and revealing more of yourselves is what happens if you start, keep working and developing your own personal bountiful garden.
Some seedlings like people are higher maintenance, a little finicky, stubborn and more delicate.
I am one of those but realize it now and working to improve. Requiring more individual time, love, kindness, understanding from others around me. Other plants like folks you know develop late in the season of life. And do needless damage that can not be taken back but that does not have to continue when we finally get it.
I have learned much today I could have benefited from earlier in my life. To avoid some of the pitfalls, mistakes that I was blind to see. The people I hurt blindly. Usually from busyness or not spending daily time, on my knees that I can only get in my simple, spiritual personal garden experience. Get a seed catalog. Till that plot of dirt you own.
Share the food and what you learn while growing it in that garden out back.
Then get off your knees, stand up and be willing to be an open book to others. Stop hiding, wearing a mask, running. Quit trying to run your own life alone and turn it over to God. Freely testifying for others to learn the lessons you encounter in your personal gardening experience. So others struggling can see why. So others can avoid some of the same mistakes you were not warned about. Or just were not listening to the cues. You can only change you.
You find you are never truely alone in your personal garden either. And your spiritual pantry, root cellar of the real treasure in life will fill to overflowing with pure love and joy if you are willing to get your hands dirty. So you eventually consider whatever happens to you is all joy. Taking nothing for granted. And learning to let go, trust something outside yourself to guide your life. Your kids are watching. They need to know what to do, how to live their lives from your shining example. Or on their own without it if missing.
They say some people are harder to love.
The expression is that hurt people hurt people and that many folks retreat, build walls to keep others away defensively. And to maintain loving relationships comes harder because they need more time alone. To be in that personal garden alone to see, hear, learn. To eventually understand more about the lighted path to a special, sacred place of unity, oneness in relationships. Take it to that next level that is just before the “best is yet to come stage” that only a long relationship of triumphs and setbacks can produce.
Don’t you want that kind of deeper comittment and to grow closer with someone? You have to be willing to trust, open up, be vulnerable and surrender. In the garden is where you learn to do that. To be less self assured, self contained and so tightly wrapped, unavailable. Not wearing the public mask that does not reflect what is carried around in your heart.
The mailman who calls me “Slim” brought me my garden seed catalogs this week.
I plant it alone this year with empty nest syndrome sinking in. But I am excited, know the size I can handle to enjoy it, get produce from it. And have the horse model Troy Bilt rototiller I inherited from my parents all serviced, ready to fire up. It will definitely be smaller than the family garden the last few years. I have learned my limitations. Easy does it.
The rototiller put through its paces to prepare the soil with the garden I already have thought out, planted in my head. Each plant seed or seedling needs its own individual spacing and depth. You will learn what to do next spring if you get it wrong and notice the mistakes this fall during harvest too. Each spring is a new season to start again, but armed with what you learned from previous gardens you sow and reap from in your life.
Roll up your sleeves, be willing to be vulnerable, open and honest about your fears, weaknesses as you head to your personal garden.
The work out will show you much about yourself, how you are built and why. And where long over due changes are blaringly visible like over grown neglected weed sections that need your attention. Because your kids are watching and need to learn they must plant gardens of their own. And how they need to be tended, watched over and sheperded so they don’t get out of control. Or are not fruitful to be enjoyed by others you love and care about around you. No man is an island.
