So No Real Work Today!

The sun is shining, the earth is warm, I have a deadline looming and a ton of work today. There is no earthly good reason for me to be in here writing to you Dear Reader, but I just have to share with you what I discovered today.

I'm a bit slow on the uptake, you most likely know this tid-bit of wisdom already. And I have a vague notion that I knew this all before. But doncha know that when the Holy Spirit really wants you to learn some concept he will have you learn it in a serious and deeply philosophical mode and then just to make sure it is good and sunk in He'll give you a nuther chance to see it in another way that becomes rather a laughing point.

So now I gotta share.

One of my daughters has been bringing me, or spreading herself, the lime I requested be spread on all of the garden beds. We've been spreading it for the last two and a half months on beds as we work along getting them ready for spring.

When we started I happened to be out in a garden and the fertilizers and lime are up at my current hot house/laundry room/pet food station/storage shed shed. So I asked my daughter to go up to the "shop" and get a scoop of the Sea 90 and an equal scoop of the lime. She and her sister had spread the Sea 90 on the pastures this fall so she knew what that was, the lime she wasn't so sure about. I told her it was up there in a can.

I knew it was in a garbage can because I had just transferred it from the bags into a lined garbage can because the bags had been compromised and were taking on moisture, one hadn't so I had set the un-moist bag on the top of the lime that I had opened and poured into the garbage can, mostly so that I would have a reminder of what it was that was in the can. Trust me I have stood over plenty of interesting looking material that I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was, the bag was very necessary. So I knew that the lime was in the can with one of the original white bags on top.

My daughter came back from the shop looking confused, I had expected her to come with fertilizer and lime in hand and was slightly put out that it wasn't the case and instead she had more questions for me.

"You mean the stuff in the white bag?" she asked, not mentioning the garbage can.

"Yes," I quipped impatiently, wonder who in their right mind would think that the potting soil might be lime. The can that held the lime was right there with the cans that held various types of potting soil for starting seeds and setting cuttings.

So in a bit, back she came with equal amounts of Sea 90 and lime. And we spread it on the beds we were working. The next week, more beds, and more lime and Sea 90 fetched by the same daughter. Now she has become my fertilizer fetcher and she is great at it. And we have worked our way through most of the garden beds in the Barn Garden and are up at the North Garden now. And day before yesterday and yesterday we finished dusting the beds in the North Garden with Sea 90 and lime. All except one. It has a hoops on it ready for plastic and remay is on the bed keeping in the warmth.

Today I went to the North Garden all on my own, looking to plant some beet and carrot seeds under the remay and put the plastic on the hoops. After I was down there, I realized that because of the remay this bed had been skipped with the Sea 90 and the lime. So I headed back down to the multi-purpose shop to get the fertilizer and lime.

Huh, that's odd. The lime is not as dry as the stuff my daughter brought to me.

Remember, the reason I dumped all of the bags of lime into the garbage can was because they were torn a bit and getting moist. But when my daughter brought me the "lime" I just assumed that it had dried out a bit.

"Hey, sweetie, you want to come out and show me where you have been getting the lime?"

"Yes", as we walk together into the shop. Ah hah. Yep it is a white bag alright but not the white bag in the garbage can. It in fact is a white bag that sits inside the shop on the floor right next to the bag of Sea 90.

"So that wasn't the lime mom?"

"Uh nope. It is a bag of either organic fertilizer from Azure Standard or the livestock mineral salt that they sell, I was waiting to test it to figure out what it was as the label had been ripped off. "

Ooops.

So none of the beds have been limed. They have been fertilized or mineral salted, but they haven't been limed.

Ah what a good chuckle we have had this afternoon. I'm up in the North Garden spreading lime or re-spreading lime or however I ought to look at that, and I can't stop smiling and chuckling to myself. Daughter passes by me on her way to the dumpster with a load of garbage from the kitchen.

"Why you smilin' mom?"

"'Cause everything just always seems to tie together to get a message through. There just always seems to be a "theme of the week" going on around here."

"What's the message? What's the theme?"


"Make sure that when you are talking to someone about something, that you and they are indeed talking about the same thing, there are lots of "white bags" in the world."

I had been thinking up in the North Garden that it can work in either direction. How many times have Dirt and I really been talking about the same thing but we thought we were talking about different things.

"Honey, can you go get the ratchet out of the bottom of my red tool box? "

"Sure." But because I am already in sort of a snit that day towards my beloved I don't see the ratchet in the only tool box in the location he sent me to and I come back in what can only be described as a foul mood because I've had to go on a wild goose chase.

"There isn't a red tool box out there, only an orange metal one and I took all the stuff off the top of it so that I could get in it and there isn't a ratchet!"

"Yes, that is the one and there are little drawers on the bottom of it, you don't have to go into it through the top. "

"Oh"

That is sort of what we have going on around us, some one who has their nose out of joint about things of our framily, takes exception to a word we use to describe what we do with those we love to keep them safe and undefiled. They want us to change our ways to their ways. But what they don't realize is that they say red and not orange but really it is orange, it is just that we work off of more colors that just the primary set, we like to paint more detailed pictures.

But the opposite can also be true, we can be seemingly talking about the same thing and yet not talking about the same thing at all. I can say fetch me some fertilizer and my dear spouse brings me a wheel barrow full of barn yard shit when really what I wanted was the bag of organic fertilizer blend that is sitting in the shed.

If we are not careful and specific, those we speak with can nod their heads and say yes yes. We can in turn get all excited that they understand us and are traveling the same road but in reality they are heading in the opposite direction.

Just on the west side of Washington there is a Silver lake in Pierce county, Cowlitz county and Watcom county and those are the three that I know of. And each has a "resort" on them. So if I told my brother to meet us at Silver lake at the resort, he could be a hundred or so miles from where we are but in the right place in his mind.

Often Dirt and I talk about how we are attempting to raise our daughters to be pure. We are coming to the realization that we often are speaking a different language than those who hear us. When we speak of purity we are not just saying that no one can touch our daughters where the bathing suit goes until they are married. But often that is all the farther folks get when you speak of purity and daughters.

We are looking for daughters with a purity that goes beyond the wedding night. A purity of heart, a cleanliness not a prudishness.