Pushing Through the Crust

On Easter Sunday we had our tighter circle of family out to Hooverville for a wonderful meal.  Grandma, Grandpa, Steven and Miranda,  Tommy and Denice, Mom, Dad, Grant and I, all enjoyed a wonderful meal prepared by my mother.  Ham, deviled eggs, salad, hot rolls, potato casserole and beans made for a delicious spread.

Grandma and Grandpa were excited to be back at home.  The first thing Grandpa did when he got out of the car was take his walker out to the wheat pasture behind the house.  He wanted to see the wheat!

I walked with him as we examined the wheat up close.  He picked a strand and told me the head would come out here in the next week or so.  I always take Dad and Grandpa's word when it comes to farming and gardening, however the back of my mind says they have to be either psychic or magicians to know this stuff.  How can you tell the exact week when your crop is going to pop out of the ground or turn colors?  Grandpa hadn't even seen my garden and he still knew when my potatoes would sprout!

Since we were near the garden I excitedly showed Grandpa the progress my onions had made.  He was very pleased, although I quickly apologized for not having freshly weeded the garden (it had been less than a week, though.)  Nevertheless, Grandpa's seal of approval was on my onions, and that was worth gold!

A few weeks later my potatoes started to bloom.  Dad had told me to keep the ground wet so the plants could push through the crust.  I was fascinated as I soon saw exactly what Dad meant. These tiny baby plants were literally pushing their way through the hard outer shell of the earth and into the fresh air.  For weeks I had been hoeing around plants that I couldn't see.  To be honest, I wasn't even sure if I was hoeing in between the rows or not, but by good faith I did it anyway.  Slowly but surely one plant after another began to pop up, and it seemed like overnight they would arrive.

The whole idea of "pushing through the crust" is amazing to me.  What was once a seed is now moving earth around so they can complete it's purpose in life.  I think that should inspire anyone.  What is the "crust" in your life that you need to push through in order to fulfill your purpose?

In church on Sunday this lesson continued when my pastor spoke on the parable of the seeds in Mark 4.  The farmer used good seed and cast it across the land.  The seed fell on to four different types of soil: hard, rocky, thorny and good.  Each type of soil is linked to the spiritual life of you and I.  The Lord is planting seeds and we hear good words but are they taking root in your life?  Perhaps the seeds are not growing because your heart is hard or because your idols are choking it out.  Maybe you believe the Lord and want to follow him but as soon as a hard time comes you give up.

The good news is, you can change your soil.  You can change the outcome of the seeds.  It is your choice to be good soil, you only have to cultivate your heart in good faith, just as I did my garden.  Remember, it was weeks before I saw results, but the persistence paid off.

Think about what kind of soil you are, and ask yourself what crust you need to push through in order to live the life of purpose and passion that God called you to.  You just mind find a sprout to water.

The Onions Have Been Planted

The first crop of the new year has been planted.  Six rows of delicious onions; 2 red, 2 yellow, and 2 white, have been planted.

I had held off planting for the past few weeks due to several different things.  Grandpa's 90th Birthday Party, lots of freezing rain and snow, and spending more time working on the house.  After the majority of Hoovers left on Sunday morning, I found my time and weather, to plant onions.  The sunshine could not have been more beautiful, and the forecast called for a 50% chance of rain on Monday.

I had never planted onions before and I couldn't quite remember Grandpa's verbal instructions from three weeks back, so luckily Dad was around and he helped me get started.  The equipment we use still makes me giggle.  Two metal posts, some old string and a metal do-hickey are all we needed.  I had somehow thought a rake, a shovel and a hoe would be appropriate.

After stretching the string on the two posts to make a straight line, Dad showed me to poke the metal do-hickey into the ground to form small holes about 6 inches apart.  These small holes are what we drop the onion sprouts in.

My cousin Justin and his family came out to say goodbye when they realized what I was working on.  Justin has a very nice garden of his own back in Arkansas.  We discussed heirloom potatoes and red okra.  He also told me about a plant called Egyptian Walking Onions, which seem to replant themselves each year.  I'd like to see all these plants he described.

Justin and I agree that the best cure for sitting in an office all day is getting down and dirty in the garden.  Plus the health benefits of growing and eating your own food are so wonderful.  He is a few steps ahead of me in that he has been growing for longer and thus has a more expanded garden.  He plants tomatos, onions, peppers, squash and all sorts of things.  He also has a few chickens that provide him with fresh eggs and eventually fresh poultry.  This weekend he brought his fresh eggs with him and made omelets for everyone.  He also brought a big jar of non-pasturized milk he bought off of a neighbor.  It was absolutely delicious.

Originally, I had thought it would be fun for the whole family to get involved with the onion planting, making it a fun event on the farm.  However, the weekend was overly packed with fellowship, food and birthday cake, and everyone was only in for 1-2 nights, so I had to plant alone.  Turns out I didn't mind at all.  The solitude was just what I needed after a houseful of 30-50 people.  At first I thought I would play some music to relax, but then I realized you can listen to music anytime.  Silence is not something you can always get.

What a wonderful feeling it is to be all alone in the middle of nature.  I paused to look around me.  Wheat surrounded me on three sides.  Beautiful, lush, green wheat.  My hands and knees were covered in dirt and to my east I could admire the grand house that so often is filled with fond memories of friends and family.  The cows are usually pretty close to the fence near the garden, but they were off in the distance sun-bathing.  Even the kittens were lounging around in the grass, enjoying the quite sunshine.

I haven't mapped out exactly what all I want to plant this year, but my brother said he will be home next weekend and he has every intention of planting potatoes in the garden.  So I guess I will be finding some potato sprouts this week.

I'd like to try my hand in peppers this year for sure.  I love peppers and fresh salsa would be amazing.  However, if I want salsa I will have to learn the techniques for growing tomatos and those seem threatening because they start upside down.

Squash will be planted again, but this time I will make sure we get summer squash instead of winter.  Okra is a must, but I may not plant as much because that, my friends, was a high-maintenance plant.  Grant also mentioned having a few pumpkins for this fall and we all agreed watermelon was fun to pick on hot summer nights.

I guess I will start thinking about the contents of this year's garden.  As long as I can get help from my friends and family I think I am capable again.  Other than onions and potatoes, the rest of the plants prefer to wait until early May to be planted.

Maybe the Garden Isn't So Bad After All...

Gardening isn't so bad after all.  Maybe I did get a little bit of my grandpa's green thumb in my genes.

Today I picked my first okra crop.  I spent well over an hour and a half in the garden and wound up late for work.  It was 75 degrees and cloudy, a beautiful day to work outside.  I suppose the serenity of it all caused me to lose track of time.  That, and the fact that I had twice as much work to do.

I think gardening is sort of like a video game in that it gets more and more complex with each new step.  When you master level 1 of fighting off big weeds and protecting baby plants, then you move to level two, which is fighting off billions of tiny weeds, watering constantly and still protecting the plants.  Level 3 combines all of this plus evil grasshopper ninjas.  (The secret to that level was finding out about a magical dust that kills off the villain.)

Today I entered level four.  Not only was there big weeds, little weeds and grasshoppers to be fought, but now there was a beautiful menagerie of dead grasshoppers and baby frogs to avoid, plus you have to harvest the crop.  One may think harvesting okra is quite simple.  Well, it is and it isn't.  The picking is easy because you simply break, twist or cut the stem off from the plant and through the fruit in a bucket.  The hard part is knowing when to pick it.  Just like those darn video games, timing is everything.  Pick to early and the fruit isn't ripe, but pick a day or two later and the darn thing is 6 inches long and tough as a rock.

I'm not the hardest working Gardener there is, I'm trying, but my time commitment to the garden has been about one morning a week, sometimes two.  One week ago I tended my garden and was very pleased.  There were lots of baby sprouts of okra, and several small squash plants growing.  It had finally rained a few inches, for the first time all summer!  That rain brought lots of growth, a skip-watering-free card, and the addition of baby weeds solidly covering the earth.  What blows my mind, is less than a week later, the baby okra sprouts are already overgrown and too tough to eat!  Where did the time go?  They grow up so fast...

Luckily it is raining again this week, 1 inch yesterday and it is currently falling outside my window.  We've been in a drought so long I guess I don't actually understand the role of rain.  For the first 2 months of my gardening career I relied solely on water out of a hose for nourishment, but the last two weeks have seemed like a vacation because nature has basically taken care of itself.  I guess that's sort of how the whole thing works, isn't it?  You plant the seeds and help them out along the way, but the end result is up to nature--it's up to God.  Perhaps this is how child rearing takes place too.

I have been pleasantly surprised at the simplicity of gardening.  I am the type who doesn't do anything without reading a book about it first, and when I took on this whole project I had envisioned grandpa being my book, holding my hand through each step of the process until I knew with somewhat certainty what I was doing.  It hasn't been like that at all though, really, with the exception of the first planting and weeding, I've pretty much done everything on my own.  The level of my family's farm and garden expertise is so high that explaining the basics isn't something they can comprehend.  I could tell by the way my elementary questions were handled by my grandpa and dad.  It's like their minds literally could not register the fact that I didn't already know this stuff.

While I love the farm and the earth and all that jazz, I've never really been an A+ farmer's daughter.  I was in 4-H and FFA, but that was all rather socially obligated since I didn't show animals.  I thought about showing a pig once, but dad said I 'd be the one getting up at 6 every morning to feed, water and walk it, so I decided not to.

A large majority of my childhood was spent playing on the farm.  But I didn't drive tractors, collect eggs and milk cows like one might assume.  My cousins and I ran around the open spaces creating forts and houses, games and adventures.  When we were forced to retract inside for dinner (lunch), we would clean ourselves up and eat with the family, afterwards finding new escapades involving grandma's lipstick and old dresses.  My Dad was always on the tractor working hard and the men in the family would assure my girl cousins and I that we needed to help grandma in the kitchen, rather than our dad's on the farm.  So we did, and I'll tell you what, I do know how to make a mean chicken fried steak, but ask me about acres and cattle and I might give you a blank stare.

It's not that I disagree with my spot on the family farm so much as it is that I just don't learn things in a normal way.  I have to see things written out on paper or acted out in front of me.  If we're going to talk numbers of acres and numbers of cattle blah, blah, blah...you better hold your tongue till I have a pad of paper and a pen to take notes on.  Then I need a good hour or so to commit this information to memory.  That's just the way I learn.  Unfortunately, farm life seems to be less educational and more intuitive.  I guess that's what I mean when I say the simplicity of gardening surprised me.  With little to no instruction, each day I show up at the farm with a tank top and some muddy tennis shoes.  I then rummage around till I find a pair of gloves and grandpa's assorted hoes.  After that I pretty well dive into my work.  Each visit presents something different, and each visit I learn something new.  If something odd happens I ask dad or grandpa and they of course, always have the answer.

Actually, I did stump them one time.  Last week after gardening, I cleaned up and got ready for work as usual.  Later that morning I was sitting at my desk when I caught a glimpse of my shin.  I screeched and rolled my chair back from behind the dark interior of my desk.  I blinked hard and my stomach rolled up in a knot as I realized I had large red blotches all over my legs, from knee cap to ankle and from shin bone to the fat of my calf.  Medical things really creep me out, and especially ugly, unexplainable creepy medical things on my own flesh.  Eww.  I looked and I looked and I couldn't turn away even though my stomach was getting incredibly weak.  How awful, how embarrassing, but what was it?  I went home at lunch, eager to show my mom my disgusting news, but she was at sewing class.  So I slapped on some Aloe Vera gel and went back to the office.

It wasn't until late that night I had the opportunity to show my folks what the garden did to my legs.  Horrified, they both asked if it was chiggers.  I had assumed that myself, but because they didn't itch I wasn't sure what to make of them.  Mom suggested I take a benadryl and Dad said the same.  So for a full week, I had to wear pants to work in the Oklahoma July heat of 107 degrees.  It wasn't easy, but I couldn't expose those disease-looking legs.  Fortunately, the bumps eventually went away, and before returning to the garden today I lathered myself in Avon's Skin-So-Soft (an old tradition of our family) and so far, have seen no return of the bumps.  What they were exactly, still remains a mystery.

Gardening.

GARDENING IS HARD.  I loathe Barbara Kingsolver (Author of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) for making me think otherwise.  I don't think she purposely deceived me, because she plainly describes the backaches and blisters that come from gardening, however her words were so beautiful and inspiring I took that to mean anyone and everyone can be princess Miracle Grow with no problem.

I read this book in January of this year.  I had also watched several food documentaries.  Because this was my interest at the time I became very intrigued by gardening and eating local.   So I bugged my Grandpa (the greenest of them all) and pleaded with him to teach me how to garden.  After months and months of him reminding me how old and unable his body was, he finally caved and we began work on our garden.

The first day of work was fun and interesting--mostly because it was all new to me.  We measured out the rows with bailing wire and metal rods.  Grandpa, my brother and I took turn hoeing, seeding and covering.  Within a couple of hours we had ourselves 4 rows of seeds: 2 okra, 1 squash, and 1 mixture of squash and watermelon.

The second time I went to the garden to work (more than a few days later) I was instructed to hoe the weeds out from around my plants.  While it was too hot for Grandpa to supervise, he sent my Uncle Steven to do so.  We began searching for plants among the weeds, me taking after his lead.  More than once I was diligently pulling weeds from around a plant, careful not to destroy the plant of my main focus, when Steven would laugh hardily and point out that I was nurturing not a plant, but a careless weed.  

When he told my Dad of this common mistake I made I think Dad was a little embarrassed.  Do you not know how to tell a careless weed from an okra plant?  he would ask.

Again and again I worked on getting rid of the weeds, sometimes by myself.  Though I have so desperately been trying to protect the plants and kill the weeds, I can't help but get frustrated at the fact that I'm not confident in being able to tell the difference!  They all just look like plants to me.

I had imagined I would have an inherited green thumb since my Grandpa was the master and my Dad had been farming for as long as he could remember.  But now that I have been working on my own garden I'm starting to realize I don't even begin to have a green thumb, in fact, I feel more like I have an ax-murderer thumb.  Every time I get into the groove of viciously killing weeds, I always stop after a few wacks and nervously wonder if anything I just killed might have been a plant.  

Barbara Kingsolver always talked about how delicately she tended to each plant like a baby.  The reality I have found is that when it's 100-something degrees and your swingin' a hoe around your head while your palms callous and your back aches, the aggression towards weeds overcomes the maternal instinct within you that should be focused on baby plants.  

Yesterday my Dad called me to tell me the garden was a mess and he was disappointed in my work.  I giggled accidentally before he reminded me to come tend to it when I got off work.

When I arrived at the farm Dad and my brother had already put in a back-aching amount of work, uncovering my lost plants and scraping back the weeds.  Together we worked hard to hollow out a circle around each individual plant, then hand water each one.  After about 30 minutes the guys left and I was handed the heavy hoe and instructed on how to properly weed the rest of the garden.

I hoed and I hoed and I hoed and I hoed.  My lower right back would hurt so I would switch my stance until my left lower back hurt.  Back and forth I would go until I covered the 40-or so feet of garden I had claimed.

After an hour had passed my back was covered in sweat and my arms were stiff.  The hair dryer-like Oklahoma wind had kept me covered in dirt and the ground had been brittle and hard to deal with.  As I took off my gloves I noticed two things.  First I noticed the new blisters on top of my old blisters weren't near as big as the previous ones (success!)   Second I noticed that my right hand would not straighten itself.  Both hands ached and so I looked like a baby kangaroo with my limp hands gathered towards my chest in pain.

By the time I reached my mother's dinner table my family looked at my reeking body with disgust and made funny comments about the reddish color of my face.  In return I asked my brother and father if they ever had experiences with their hands cramping up after hoeing.  They looked at me and laughed, accusing me of not working outside enough.

Throughout the entire meal my fork shook the pasta and sausage it held despite my effort to hold it steadily.  In fact, the next morning at breakfast my cereal spoon still had the same effect.

Although it is fun to have an excuse to go to the farm and get dirty, I have had a love-hate relationship with this new adventure I've blindly dove into.  With every complaint I try to equal it with the thoughts of how this will all be worth it when I am enjoying tasty delicious Okra in August.  Unfortunately, I'm not so sure the delight of ingestion is going to be worth the time and effort of care.  I guess we'll have to see.

I have only worked in my garden 4-5 times, but I have already learned three important lessons I wish to share with you.

1. Don't Trust Books. Although I am a writer and avid reader, I feel obligated to put this one out there.  I learn everything I can from books, but I somehow often forget to keep my reading-induced imagination under the reality of things.  Just because you read it, does not mean you are an expert!

2. My generation is lazy.  Although I am a farmer's daughter I have never had to garden or plow and I have always lived within 5 miles of a grocery store.  I've never had to work very hard for my food and I have always had plenty.  Each time I complain about the pain in my back caused from gardening, I imagine how fit and energetic the generations before Wal-Mart must have been.

3. Respect the Growers!  If you are fortunate enough to live near a Farmer's Market I suggest you take great advantage of it.  The amount of work put into local eating and growing is both healthy and beneficial to all involved, and the work load is not something everyone can pull off.  Next time you see that local grower, I suggest falling prostrate in admiration.  

Joy.

A few weeks ago I was having the most splendid day ever.  I woke up early and headed to the farm with my brother.  I was so excited because we were finally getting to help grandpa make a garden for this summer.  I had been asking about this project for weeks and the time had finally come.

I donned by dirty jeans and ripped t-shirt and headed north towards the farm.  When we got to grandpa's house he put on his coveralls and met us outside in the patch a dirt that would soon be the garden.

Before we could start, Grandpa had us collect a hodge-podge of things.  First an 18 inch stick, then a piece of string, and finally a water hose.  Each item took us to a different corner of the homestead, searching and finding.

While I followed my brother around the back side of the garage in search of a water hose, I was filled with nostalgia.  I remembered doing things just like this when I was much younger.  Growing up around the farm was the funnest part of my childhood.  We were always playing in the dirt, making up games and creating hiding houses.

One of my favorite memories on the farm was finding litters of kittens each spring.  I always searched for new litters and upon finding them it was customary for me to catch one, then run inside and show grandma.   Grandma would then help me take care of them and make them a box to live in so we could feed them and hopefully tame them into being friendly cats.

I was reminiscing this springtime scene in my head when I said to my brother, "I wish I would find a kitten."  It didn't help that I had been bugging my parents for one since I moved back home.  We have a lovely dog, but I've never been much of a dog person.  I wanted a kitten that would cuddle with me and sleep at my feet while I read books and paint.  Needless to say, my desire to find a kitten was pretty strong.

As soon as the words left my mouth my brother replied in his always cool, never excited tone, "there's one."  He threw out the words as though it were as common as seeing dirt.  One side glance to the left and he continued walking like nothing extraordinary had happened.

Me on the other hand, was a different story.

As I turned the corner of the barn I saw the most adorable kismet moment ever!  All alone, by himself at only a few weeks old, was this tiny, precious white ball of fur with black spots.  He was so small and so sweet.  I ran to his side and instantly grabbed him.  As soon as I looked in his eyes I knew he was to be mine.

It was a sign.

Kittens that small don't wander off by themselves, and they especially don't go out of momma's eyesight.  I looked around the nooks and crannies nearby but found no other kittens, nor any sign of a momma cat.  This definitely wasn't good for the little guy, but it was great for me because it meant I had stumbled on to the responsibility of caring for a baby kitten.

Of course the next thing to happen was my pure bred instinct.  I ran inside to show Grandma.  Grandma, who is much slower now than she was when I was a child, was no less excited and pleased with my discovery.  We petted him and held him and talked about what to name him.

Then suddenly my heart was split.  I was supposed to be helping in the garden!  The garden was why I went out there in the first place!  I told Grandma I had to finish helping Grandpa and kindly asked her to watch my new baby.

Grandma joyfully accepted and soon found a towel and a blanket for our new friend.

After I finished helping in the garden I knew I had only a small amount of time to get ready for a wedding I was attending that afternoon.  I walked back up to Grandma's house and found her on the porch cuddling with my new kitten.  She talked about how strange it was for a kitten that small to be so calm and comfortable with people.  I agreed.

"Are you gonna keep him?"  Grandma asked me.

An ornery smile crossed my face as I tried to explain how badly I had been wanting a kitten, yet how persistently my dad had told me I couldn't have one.

"What do you think I should do?" I asked.

"I'm not telling you one way or the other because I don't want your daddy being mad at me!"  she replied with a chuckle and a grin.

I knew I didn't have long to decide because I needed to get ready for this wedding.  Plus, I couldn't just set the kitten back where I found it and come back for it later after thinking about it, because it would be gone.

I thought about leaving it on Grandma's front porch room, but then I knew she would worry about it and go out of her way to take care of it, which she didn't need to do in her health.

So I took the kitten.

I wasn't sure if I would keep it or not, but I was dang sure going to try!  Besides, I could probably sneak it into my room and keep it for the weekend without anyone noticing.

Except as soon as I stepped out of my car and into our driveway, I looked up to see my Dad walking towards me.  I hid the kitten behind my back, and because I am a horrible liar I did a poor job of trying to hide the smirk on my face.

"What is it?"  Dad must have sensed it.

"Nothing."

"What's behind your back?"

Shoot.

I was caught.

I melted and took the kitten from behind my back.  I held it up in my daddy's face and gushed over how cute it was and how it was fate that we met and how I had to keep it and that I would take care of it completely.

"No!"

"But Dad..."

"No.  We are not keeping that cat.  Take it back now."

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to take it back.  I only had time to throw together an outfit and rush to the wedding I was already late for.

So I grabbed a bucket and some towels and gently placed my kitten inside.  (Mom was already on my side, by the way. She had kindly offered to watch out for it while I was busy going about my Saturday.)

The next day I played with the kitten and fed him from a syringe and loved it and ignored my Dad's nagging to take it back.

A few more days went by and Mom and I took turns hand feeding the kitten milk.  We played with her and grew deeply attached.

When my brother came home from school, he instantly warmed up to the kitten.  In fact, he named it D'Jango.  Where he got the name, I do not know. 

"This is the coolest cat ever!"  my brother would say.

We all agreed.  He was always purring.  He was very friendly, especially for such a young kitten and a wild one too.  D'Jango always sat on our shoulder and rode calmly as we walked about the house, doing our daily duties.

This kitten had to be only 4 weeks old at the most.  For a kitten that young to be so playful and people-oriented is extremely rare.

Eventually we weaned D'Jango off of the syringe and taught him to lap up milk with his tongue.  For some reason he always had to put his paw in the milk first, making a mess of himself, then he would begin drinking.

The whole family fell in love with D'Jango, even Dad.  We loved him and we all took turns taking care of him and playing with him.

During week two of his stay with us, our cousins from Nebraska came to visit.  They loved her too.  Every day that week someone was constantly holding or playing with D'Jango.  I was so proud of my kitten.  D'Jango was growing so fast too!  Towards the end of the week we decided he was old enough to sleep outside of his box.  Up until then we had been keeping him in a box in the garage.  But seeing how he didn't run off and he followed us everywhere, we started allowing him to use the entire garage.  He loved this idea because the second we shut him in a box he cried and cried.

The following Tuesday was a big day for D'Jango.  He had graduated from a milk-only diet to dry cat food and milk.  Mom bought some kitten food for him and I looked at the Dollar Store for a cute collar and litter box for my baby.  I didn't find either, but decided I'd make a trip to Petco soon.

After work that day I painted in my studio.  The entire time D'Jango played at my feet or watched from my shoulder.  Even our dog Minnie had warmed up to this kitten.  She was absolutely fascinated with him.

Around 10pm I got ready for bed.  I changed into my pajamas, brushed my teeth and then took D'Jango out to the garage.  Kissing him over and over again as I always did when I put him to bed, I told him I loved him and set him on his tie-died fleece blanket he loved so much.

Before I left the garage he was already curled up in a ball and drifting into sweet kitten-sleep.


***To be Continued...