In a garden, you have to give a lot of love, and take a lot of bull...

In a garden, you have to give a lot of love, and take a lot of bull...well, in our case horse. Poop that is.

This weekend we (by we I mean Will) took the initiative to begin prepping the garden and planting some rows. Will is a very to the matter kind of person and took one look at our soil and said, "That soil needs some fertilizer." And off he went to visit Ms. Janice down the street for some of her finest organic horse manure.

While Will worked lovingly to spread the manure and till it into our field, Fiona and I walked around the garden and talked about our other attractions. We visited the rooster.


We also visited the compost pile and talked about colors.


Lastly, we went and visited our honeybees who were still working hard, even in 40 degree weather and 20mph winds. If you ever want your garden to flourish, get some honeybees. They're excellent pollinators and you even get to eat their yummy honey at the end of the summer.


It was such a beautiful weekend. We had the best time out in the garden and even tried to play in the yard with our neighbor friend Landon. However, Fiona sat in a nest of fire-ants and our day was over. No worries, Fiona's just fine.

As a public service announcement - if you ever step/sit in a pile of fire-ants immediately run away and disrobe all clothing as quickly as possible. Not only is this effective at getting the ants off of you quickly, but its quite entertaining for all who are watching.

Getting back to the garden... For those of you interested in what Will planted this weekend - six rows of peas (several varieties) and two rows of potatoes (mixed variety).

Randomness

I am blogging twice tonight because I don't get much "me" time on the computer. Typically I have a husband or a toddler (or both) calling my name or pulling at me to come and play.

The following topics may are completely random spewings of my brain - so read what you like and discard the rest!

Pregnancy
So, I'm pregnant. I'm around 14 weeks or so. And no, I don't know what I'm having yet - we'll find out in April.
This pregnancy has been much different from my 1st. With Fiona everything about pregnancy was new and exciting and scary. I started prepping for her arrival the moment that test came back positive. With this one I feel like I'm just back into an old routine: wake up 3 times during the night to pee, eat 6 full meals a day plus snacks, drink inordinately huge amounts of water - no caffeine, no sushi, no wine/beer (sigh).
My tummy has also gotten back into the swing of pregnancy. Apparently whatever was stretched before now stretches much more easily and my bump is already showing.
I've also done absolutely no work on the house. We only have two bedrooms, and so Fiona will be sharing her room with the baby. I'll let you know how that goes.
Anyhow - for now I'm feeling pretty good. Got my 2nd trimester energy going on, and so long as our pantry is stocked then I'm a happy girl.

Mommyhood
Fiona is so much fun these days. At 19 months she is all over the place and starting to challenge me on a few things.
Until last month Will and I had made it 5 years without a television. Actually we still don't have a television - just an old computer monitor hooked up to a DVD player. But after watching Yo Gabba Gabba, Elmo's World, Praise Baby, Sesame Street, and Milo & Otis more times than I care to count - I'm seriously reconsidering this move. Fiona will now walk up to me, point at the screen and say "TV please." She'll also push her rocking chair over to the movies, climb up and pick out what she wants to watch.
Yes - this can provide a few minutes of Fiona-free time for me, but the rest of the time she's like Telly Monster.

Country Life
Its spring again out here on the farm and Will is gearing up for another splendid garden this year. He's already added year-old compost dirt, tilled it under and is hoeing the rows.
I'm looking forward to watching our little crops grow and eating the first tomato off the vine. Yum!
I'm fairly certain that we'll be selling some produce again this year. My goal is that once the harvest is in that I'll post weekly updates of what is in season for you to pick from.
Actually, the asparagus should start coming up in the next few weeks...I'll keep you updated.

Working
Recently I cut back my hours at work so that I'm working two days a week. This change has really helped my scheduling of life, and its made me appreciate my job more. I really enjoy it when I'm there, and then I really enjoy my time off when I'm home.

Married Life
I absolutely love my husband.
Will is working on his PhD, and will be for the next several years. He works incredibly hard (he's actually napping right now so he can wake up at midnight to study for tomorrow's statistics exam).
He is also incredibly funny...well at least I find his humor funny.
The other night we were discussing the topic of beauty in the Bible. We were laughing at how it talks about enjoying the wife of your youth, and how beauty is fleeting but a godly woman is to be praised. Will's comment, "Beauty may be fleeting but damn its good while its still here!" Thanks honey. Did I mention that he loves my pregnancy body? No really, he does. I think if I could be 8 months pregnant all the time he would go for it.

God
I fell off the Bible reading wagon recently and need to jump back on.
I'm reading the Bible in reverse because I can't ever get past Leviticus if I start at Genesis. So far I've made it from Revelation to 1st John. I hope to finish the NT by New Years 2011.
Will and I are also struggling to merge our beloved Community Group with another Community Group from Vintage 21. We were led to this conclusion after the discovery of baby #2 on the way. Too many irons in the fire. We just pray that God will open a door so that everyone can still be together and not divide into different groups. So if you're a Vintage person and you know your CG can handle a merge and are kid friendly let me know!!!

Forgiven

Last night I got home from a long day at work and climbed into the shower. On the side of the tub, written in Fiona's foam bath letters I saw "4given"

I wish I had taken a picture of it.

When I saw that I just burst into tears. Sometimes I don't realize how much anxiety I carry around, or how much sin I allow to build up inside of me. Its not until I am reminded that I am forgiven that my heart overflows with relief.

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1st John 1:9

Hello? Calling all Israelites...

Callings. Really, what are they all about? Are they about you, about someone else, about God? Its all very confusing.

I've been trying to jot down notes on callings, but to be perfectly honest, I didn't come up with anything that profound on my own.

Recently I've been struggling with feeling lost in my walk (and no, we're not talking about in the six thousand isles of my local WalMart). I just feel like I'm spiritually drifting. In years past I always felt "called" to do something; to serve on a committee, to volunteer for church nursery, to go on mission trips. But recently I just feel lost.

My husband Will sweetly reminded me that all Christians go through some form of this with ups and downs in their spiritual mojo. And then he started reading to me from Numbers.

So Numbers, cliff-notes version: There were a lot of "lost" people [Israelites] who were constantly trying to figure out where they were supposed to be. God had appointed them a leader [Moses] through whom He spoke. The Israelites were always doing something wrong because they didn't listen to God, and Moses was always having to intercede on their behalf.

At this point in the story I turned to Will and said "So what is up with the Israelites? Do they just not get it? Do they not understand that they need to just follow God's will?" To which Will replied, "Well, you see...the Israelites always assumed that God was with them no matter what choices they made. Whereas Moses before making any decision sought out God's will in prayer, and in doing such received specific instructions for his next move." I had to think about that one for a minute and then said "Ooohhhhh. So what you're telling me is maybe if I ask about my calling in prayer then maybe I'll be given direction instead of wandering aimlessly through my spiritual desert?" Bingo.

Since praying about my calling I can't say that God has appeared to me in a huge cloud like He did to Moses. But I can say I'm not feeling as lost as I was. And who knows, maybe my calling will call me soon.

If you're feeling lost spiritually I urge you to pray for direction. Ask God to remove the barriers in front of you and set before you a clean path. And always know, you're not alone in that desert, there's always God, and me, and the millions of Israelites.

Flagship

So this is our flagship post -

For a long time I've been jealously stalking other friend's blogs and wishing to have one of my own. I had tried a family blog a while back. But I felt self-centered only writing about myself all the time.

I'll warn you. I don't have the best diction or grammar. My sentences don't always make sense. But I feel incomplete unless I can get thoughts down on a page. So here it goes...

My dream for Harvest is to have a general place to express the thoughts and actions of a loving Christian wife, mother, woman, and all the other things God has created me to be (nurse, gardener, cook, cleaning lady, servant, etc.).

Some things that God has laid on my heart recently: callings.
Where has God called you?
We'll discuss that next time.

Jen