Planting for Another Season

The Pacific Northwest certainly has it's failings: Weather here is hard to predict.

It is best to learn the way of the old farmer who smells the rain and snow, who feels the high pressure of clear skies, knows from which direction of the wind, the weather is to come. But on the larger, seasonal scale, La Niña or El Niño are dynamic.

Spring and fall are perhaps the most consistent of PNW seasons- the injurious crime of unpredictability we cast our judgment upon, are the solstices. Our summer and winter bear consequence of global weather patterns. We know not from year to year if the summer will be long and hot or late and cool- winter mild and wet, or deeply chilled.

Though we’re not safe from weather extremes, we are indeed a mild region and can garden around the calendar. When one season fails to bring forth much fruit, no worries, another crop is ready for planting.

From mid-July for several weeks we plant for the early fall through the late winter harvest. No self sustaining here- what comes out of the garden in the winter is sparse but we enjoy a harvest with a few new lessons learned and more winter-hardy varieties discovered.

Fall Peas are in the ground and happily sprouted. ‘Alaska’ and ‘Oregon Sugar Pod II’ (snow). This crop should harvest mid October and then only four months and we plant again.

Discovery: ducks like pea seeds- staple down well, burlap or Reemay. For most practical purposes, ducks in the garden is genius. Trample, perhaps, but their destruction is nothing to a renegade chicken, scratching and digging. Ducks eat the slugs and bugs and leave organic material behind.

Beet ‘Early Wonder’ and turnips ‘Purple Top White Globe’ have sprouted and next week, another crop for staggered harvest along with rutabagas and greenhouse seedlings such as brassics and alliums.

Last autumns harvest of potatoes left us sprouted ‘Red Pontiac’ and ‘Yukon Gold’ from a burlap sack. We threw them in the ground and they should provide several weeks of new potatoes this fall.

No Zoologists Here

“There’s a tarantula in our pool” factually ejaculates the Small One.

“Where?” prudently questions First Born, really hoping (despite what reason tells her) for an unlikely find as that.

“-or Something” concedes the former, under contorted brow.

I, however, knowing the truth of such phenomenon, dally not, endeavoring to skim all unwanted beetles, duck feathers, fir needles and-

pool tarantulas from our swimming enjoyment.

Campsite Bouquet

My family was at camp with friends this last weekend. The day we were leaving back home, my family went on a walk through the forest. I found some flowers and plants that I liked and I picked them for this bouquet.
In the above photo you can see (from L to R) Maiden Hair fern, an Acer variety (of some sort), Indian Pipe, and Western Hemlock. We are unable to figure out the stems in the back, so I guess it's just a weed!
We camped an hour from Mt. St. Helens in the Cascade Mountains. We like to visit a little store called the 'Randal One Stop' on hwy 12. When we first saw the Indian Pipe we thought it must be in the mushroom family. It isn't but uses a fungus to help it grow.
This is not an edible native plant.

If These are the Dog Days of Summer...

Who's the Dog?

For the several weeks, we girls have been splitting wood, tending to the garden, swimming with friends, harvesting berries, making jam, entertaining guests, preparing canning jars. Fhew!(deep breath) Cleaning the attic, cleaning the pool, cleaning the closets, cleaning the shed. Trellising tomatoes, saving seeds, propagating fuchsias, forgetting to fix dinner. Oops.

 

All the while the Boss-man keeps bringing home the bacon, building a bulldozer, acquiring wood for the girls to split, devouring berries, covering fellow employee vacations, expanding pasture and clearing fence lines. Paying bills, hearing from God, telling jokes, loving his family.

   

This weekend our little band will be enjoying the company of good friends at the foot of Mount St. Helens along the Cispus River.

When we return we continue on the quest for a quiet winter solstice, happy cows, molting poultry, sleepy dogs, a blazing fire and warm apple pie.

Funny to think on this glorious, hot, sunny August day that's the reason we're so busy!

 

Growing the Church

Last fall an acquaintance challenged me to clarify how we measure church growth. The accusation of invalidity stung.

I asked The Grandfather, seminary educated, retired pastor, what a church-go-er meant by “growth”.

It means numbers, bodies filling pews, The Grandfather replies. They may say that growth is spiritual but on paper, on the books, you cannot calculate on holiness, it’s a number crunching business.

Hmm, that’s what I thought.

Numbers mean denominational support, financial success, “growth”. This idea is not coming from a cranky, ex-member of big church, it comes from a retired pastor who now at 93 recognizes the organized church was reading the word ‘pastor’ with the incorrect job description. That ‘pastor’ is no higher an authority than evangelist or prophet or teacher. It’s just another gifting, that can be as humbly and privately an executed service as any of the others.

Our family has not attended an organized, hierarchal church since 2005.  We then found ourselves in what we once called “house church”, but even that gradually looked like conventional church in a living room; just replace pastor with elder. It had a liturgy of its own. We made it. More than 1500 years of corporate church is hard to pluck from the DNA in 5.

It’s hard work but we live and breathe it.

This is harder than sitting in a pew and belonging to a few committees, sitting on the board of trustees, directing youth group, running the soundboard, teaching Sunday school, singing on worship team, all at the same time. Amazin’, ain’t it? We all dedicated our spare time (and not so spare time) to the “work of the Lord”. At least there, we could schedule church for the most part- cover vacations, maternity leave, counseling sessions, golf tournaments.

Then in the quiet of a fellow Christian’s living room for “house church”, slowly (so slowly in fact, we didn’t immediately identify how profoundly) we began to see that living Christ was still more. Finding ourselves meeting with believers, we would share the wine and the bread. Hunger and thirst satisfied- body and soul. Upon a recent reunion with friends of twenty-plus years, who too, desired a community focused on being church, we began to share the cup and bread with this dear family. Understanding the power of communion intensifies the bond shared between believers over a love feast, the irreplaceable kindness that work gloves and sweat binds together in strengthening the brethren, the body of Christ. Together we go into the market place, or the street, we pray with, we minister to, the public as we meet them, as the Holy Spirit leads, without pretense and manufacture. Now that’s special!

In our circle of fellowship, we have those gifted in faith, discernments, mercy, and generosity. Teachers teach, evangelists reach and prophets prophesy. Not all gifts are used every time we gather. And because different members meet up randomly with each other throughout the week, they may exercise any of the gifts afore mentioned.

Growth is then measured by the manifestation of the character of Christ that is so evident in the lives we are all called to tend and shepherd around us.

Did ya catch that? I'll say it again.

Growth is the outward evidence that Christ lives within and we foster this in one another.

The Grandfather shakes his head doubtfully at obtaining more education, acquiring accreditation and recognized position; just more obstacles betwixt Maker and man. The pridefulness of intellectual achievement, smarts so to say, get in the way. The human race pedestalizes those with education, and perceived authority.

Living Christ is the air we breathe.  Neither credentials nor diplomas move God to respect any person, rather a heart submitted to Him.