I Know, I Know

I need to get myself completely transfered over to my new blog so that you don't have to come here and/or go there. But if I could just beg your patience a little longer? My actual post for the day, uh week actually, is over at It's_the_Dirt_dot_com.. I'm not going to double publish, mostly because.. well you don't need to know all my troubles do you Dear Reader?

And if you've got time while you're over there could you take a peak at some of my other pages? They are all in rough modes, really rough, but you could tell me what you think and then.... Just thinkin'.

The Crazy Life of Dirt

Dirt isn't just a sheep shearin' lawn mowing man, during the daylight hours on weekdays he is a school teacher, aviation mechanics to be precise, at Clover Park Technical College. And sometimes, just sometimes, that job calls for him to do something other than lecture to his students or hover over them in the lab. This week they asked him to be part of looking at the aviation curriculums throughout the state of Washington and brainstorm how Washington State can continue to retain their claim on being the place to come for the best in aviation education.

I on the other hand am an interloper for the week, I snuck myself into his duffle bag and came along for the ride. The state isn't paying for me, I'm cheap, well my finance manager is tight, so I am eating out of a cooler instead of enjoying the beautiful dining room that this group is. Had I known my first meal that Dirt bought me down at the dining hall was going to be my last I would have eaten more. Maybe not knowing was a good thing, because as it was I was bloated to the size of the Goodyear Blimp!

This is their meeting room, I crashed it this morning to take pictures. Everyone has been really nice to Dirt's wife, me, I feel bad because I am the only spouse along for the ride. Ummmm other spouses must actually have important things to do at home. Me, on the other hand? I think the girls and their helper were glad to see me drive out the driveway, now they can actually get some work done.

This is Laura, she is with AJAC, the folks that put this thing together for the guvner of our humble state. She's in charge. How do I know? She was the one who gracefully started the meeting.

But before she did, I managed to get in a few pics of the folks Dirts hangin' with this week.

This is Reckless Raymond, (I got the reckless part from a story he told the first night we were here, the first night Dirt splurged and let me eat in the restaurant here at the resort) he doesn't seem reckless to me. And in fact is very nice, he is from the Spokane area and has two small children, so small that he doesn't know about The Fantastic Mr. Fox. He should watch it any way.

This is Bonnie, she is very sweet, but then she is from Texas, and it seems everything from Texas is sweet.

This is Alex, he teaches in Everett and is a fellow motersickle rider.

The place where this is all happening is a nice resort just outside of Leavenworth, I'll show pics of the town and surroundings soon, but for now just know that as you drive through town you suddenly have an urge to braid your hair and start yodeling.

Nice eh? What image do you see in the silhouette of those hills? If you can figure it out, you know the name of the place we're staying.

Dear Reader, I am off for another adventure into this little slice of God's amazing creation. Poor Dirt, he has to stay in meetings all day, but he gets juice and cookies and everyone is very nice so I won't feel too bad for him. I am going off to see some more wildflowers...

The hillsides of Central Washington are covered with these beauties, Arrowleaf balsamroot - Balsamorhiza sagittata. Not sure how fond the locals are of them as they seem to grow anywhere and everywhere, but they sure caught my eye and my appreciation.

Have as sunny a day as this flower and I am today Dear Reader, stay workin' in the spirit and not in the flesh, do so as if you were doin' all unto the Lord our God, and I'll do my best to be right there with you.

Ah, the irony of it all, now that I have a WordPress, Blogger cooperates and WordPress throws a fit. Aww I'm chuckling at that! Now I need a nuther vacation to work out all my new kinks and a nuther one to set up a web site for Vicktory Farm & Gardens

Wart Doin?

We're keepin' our heads down and pluggin' away at the spring work. Glad for the new head space of no opening day, I seem to be working faster and harder even, just wish my lungs would keep up.

North Garden will be turning into my cut flower and or bouquet garden. I won't be changing the name 'cause in a year or two it is possible that I might change it to something else. For now, because of the soil we have built here it will be where I sow carrot and parsnip seed. But I think carrots and parsnips could look really cool in an arrangement, so I don't think that is fudging on the rules at all, besides they're not really rules, more like guidelines really.

Because Dirt is such a wise man and has come up with the idea for us to have one central killer compost area just inside the pasture gate partitioned off by ecology blocks, we are eliminating all our little compost piles. The girls are sifting through this one right now, using Dirt's and my old sod sifter from when we were first married and gardening new spaces together.

I'm a cold compost-er, I just throw it on as it comes, everything, I don't turn, I don't mess, so to keep the air that the aerobic microbes need to munch it all up, I mindfully toss in enough stuff the likes of this. I find it easier to sift a compost pile when all is said and done than to turn and toss, wet and fuss, and check its temperature all the time. Economy model mother, economy model gardener.

This particular compost pile was started when this garden was started and its true purpose was to cover the ginormous rock that lay on the edge of center in the garden. The rock seems to have moved, and shrunk, odd, very odd, Do you think I am so good that I can compost a giant rock?

It appears that I am, because this is all that is left of it and this wasn't even under the pile any more. Mind you, we had metal T-posts sunk around the edges of the rock, they held up palettes that held in the compost and they marked the edge of the rock for when Dirt came in with the tiller.

So Dear Reader, I am not of my rocker or rock, I know of what I speak! This rock has rolled, unless steel T-post go pogo stick at night, and in unison!

The area that was once a rock and then a compost pile is going to be scraped flat along with adjoining spaces, level with the major pathways. This area will become a table and chairs area, to set and ponder the flowers. I'm thinkin' I want to have the table and chairs bar height so that it can also be an outdoor work area to do up bouquets and such right in the garden.

Here's a quick shot of my little tulip crop, these were just babies last year, most weren't large enough to bloom even and just tiny buds on one or two. I need to come and give them a little foliar spray to boost their nutrition.

The lettuces and mustards are getting spread out this week by the girls, planted equidistance apart. I don't thin well, when I come across a seedling that looks poorly, I always find a spot for it.

Planting out the onion plants has been a challenge in that regard, it is hard to toss the silly little ones that most likely won't grow nice.

Oh by the way Dear Reader, I just teleported you out to Market Garden at the north end of the pastures down by the highway. Just beyond the tilled soil is the old pumpkin patch, we've decided to create a buffer zone hedge row sort of area. It is seventy feet from fence to fence and we'll come in quite a ways from the highway fence just to make sure it all stays, all our work, nature can then have the space between the highway and our hedge row.

A place where people, determined to drive while sleeping can fly into with their trucks and not make me too crazy. Or if the highway department ever widens the now well traveled highway, well be ready for it.

Fruit trees, nut trees, flowery berry laden bushes for our little flighty friends and such, we'll most likely get to that in the fall or late winter. Bet and I might toss some wild flower seed in there for now just for the fun of it.

Here's a better view of the onions, the first crop to go in our Market Garden. They could be bigger that would be nice, but they have been on hold a little too long. Don't know what this crew was thinkin' last fall when we knew we were going to come over sometimes our brains are mush.

But all is well, they seem to be bouncing back just fine, our onions might be on the small side this year but what the heck we've planted about a thousand so far and are only half way through, so we'll have onions.

Bet and I perfected the furrow thing, I don't often plant in furrows so I forget often what really needs to happen. The dirt, soil, needs to stay, be pressed a bit to squish out some of the air, and an impression made for the seed or seedling. I usually make little holes, equidistance apart for optimum space usage. But I wasn't into making two-thousand little holes by hand.

But pulling a hoe across the soil to make a furrow causes soil loss at the edge of the bed. So we used the outside edge of our hands to just press in the furrow lines. It went way quicker, the soil stayed put and all is well.

Thought I'd show you a bit of how we are making the beds in Market Garden, not too different from how I always put together a first time bed.

Bet and Dirt had gone over the whole area seventy by four-hundred feet, with the pto tiller behind Orange Tractor. But due to time and hard sod and precious worms and such, we did not opt to till it to a fine powder, not even close really.

We mark out the beds with stakes and baling twined, scoop the busted sod and the soil from the path areas, heap it on the bed areas and then because the sod is still fairly clumpy and in need of being broke we just put straight barn cleanings right on the top of the soddy soil.

That straw you see is well soaked in urine and lots of dung is in there so it will rot in no time and it will break down the sod. That of course makes for a bit less nutrition available to the plant so we'll be foliar spraying with manure tea a lot this year.

Next year these beds will be ready to handle carrots and parsnips. With all this work going into the prep of the beds and changing up the focus of the other garden areas some ideas have changed quite a bit, but heck Dear Reader, you knew I was queen of change didn't you?

Well, I got some stuff a callin' my name, I'd love to stay and chat, let my lungs rest a bit longer, but my brain has gotta get out and do some real work, But you're right Dear Reader, I do need to keep better records than I have in the past, it's time, and all this plannin' and stuff takes up a bit of writin' space.

Have an excellent week, we've got a pile of things on our wanna do list so we won't be wandering the streets and carousing this weekend, maybe next weekend. Dear Reader, stay well, let's stay tuned to the Holy Spirit channel instead of the ol' flesh and we'll get on down the road lots better together.

By the way, This was the post that wouldn't load from Live Writer and has started all this shenanigans with getting a dot com and WordPress-ing it. But I think the problem was with my internet connection at my house.

Oh, and, Wart Doin' is a grandboyism for, what are you doing?

Oh yeah, and another thing, I'm now found at http://www.itsthedirt.com/ Plain and simple, itsthedirt.com. It is a WordPress blog on my own domain, looking forward to where this new step takes me. It is still a little rough but I thought maybe you'd like to watch my progess over there.

I Ran a Test

In case you didn't catch it, I've been feelin' lousy, so I guess I hope you didn't.

I've been coffin' and wheezen' up a storm for a couple of weeks now. I couldn't tell if it was a real life cold, knew some folks who had one, or just allergies. So I tried my darnedest to give it to those closest to me, Dirt, EBet, Anna Coleen. And nothin' nobody has so much as sneezed.

Test over. Now for the cure.

And because I am a bit preoccupied (with spring) and already feeling super lousy (with spring) and can barely get my regular work half done, nah, lets say I'm getting about a quarter done and that would be generous, well then Dear Reader I'm ditching my hippy and I'm reachin' for the quick and mainstream chemical cures. Seventeen bucks for forty days of breathing, works for me. Even as we speak it's workin', I can actually breathe and I think I might get to sleep not sitting upright tonight!

Live Writer, my new favorite way to prep my posts no longer works for me, unless I want my posts to be three sentences long. Uhhhh that's what I have FaceBook for (and why I secretly hate it). So... I may be goin' Word Press, we'll see. But I think I need a degree in something or perhaps this process will give me a degree or two, of increased body temperature, it doesn't appear so easy as blogger, hope that means it is more reliable.

Oh For Cryin' Out Loud!

Just when you learn to say. "jelly" they change it to jam!

I've been using Windows Live Writer for a while now, digin' it for so many reasons, 'cept now it is givin' me a "timed out" message when I go to publish. Live Writer help says it's an issue with the server, to wait and publish later.

I'm hooked on Live Writer and I will only come back here to publish straight from Blogger if I absolutely have to.

When I can stop getting "timed out" you will see my latest post, nothin' special to wait around for and I don't know when that will be, so by all means head off to the park with great Aunt Lucy and maybe when you get back...

Hand Wringing and Doom and Gloomers

If it is a sin to worry... oh, wait.. you may not know that, let me set my premise to this whole chat then.

Worry:
In Matthew, chapter six, Jesus speaks a good deal of worry, he asks us if it really gets us any where and in a way answers that and then says to not worry because He will take care of us.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Worry and being anxious is in direct opposition to faith, anxiety is the opposite of what Christ calls us to, He calls us to have faith in Him, not in our strength, not in dates and opinion polls, not in our ability to fuss and worry over all things in life, but to have faith in His strength, to rely on Him.

Christ tells us not to worry about earthly things, clothes, food, friends, He even tells us not to worry about what would be terribly important, our testimony when we are arrested because we know Him.

Even modern science tell us that worry, stress, robs from us. It makes us age faster. Like Christ says, today has enough trouble of its own, like the poor, there will always be stresses, ones that we cannot escape, ones that are not a result of faith breaking worry and fear. But we are not to heap on the troubles of today and worry and fear our tomorrows. Worry certainly does not buy us more time and science backs that one up. Not because Christ needs modern science to back Him up, but interesting how the truth of the words of Christ do not need to see the end of this world to be plainly seen as true, right and good.

What is sin really, but to go against God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit? To live in and for the flesh and not reside in the Spirit, all of that, it is all sin. Sorry, if that just broadens the scope of what is sin and what is not, in your world. But to worry, to fret, to fear situations, is to not have faith, to not rest in God and take Him at His word, that He will take care of us.

Check it out, you do not have to become a breatharian ascetic to live a Spirit-led, faith-filled, anxiety-denying life. The Spirit leads us to eat and eat peacefully. True servants of His made cloth for clothing and tents for shelter. He calls us to be in company with one another, to crave to be in fellowship, to travel, to do good deeds of all sorts. But all that for Christ and not our very own flesh.

Might I go on now?

So its a sin to worry and be anxious and sin will always come into the world, we aren't going to stop it at the gate. However, if the one who lets the sin slip by them and causes a child of God to sin there by drawing an eventual remorse so strong that the Path-Paver would then choose to be drown for certain in the sea with a millstone around their neck, then why on earth would you desire to cause or stir up worry in another person?

Just wonderin'.

(Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42 and Luke 17:2 in case you think I'm nutty about what happens to the path pavers, wide gate openers, uh, what they would rather have happen to them.)

So if you would not wish to cause another worry whether for their soul or for your very own neck, then why would you do business with a person who trades on anxieties and worries to make their buck?

Now I am not talking about not buying a safe ladder, or rubber gloves, or new brakes for your car, or vitamin C.

Remember, weavers, tent makers, moms, dads, travelers, neighbors we're all called to be His.

What I am speaking of, wondering about is, perpetuating the commerce of anxiety by buying into doom and gloom and "whoa is us", and "oh no the world is coming to an end" or at least a whopping good crisis.

I got news for you. The world is going to end. That is with out a doubt.

However, no one knows that day and time, not even Christ, only the Father. And no one is going to escape it no matter how deep their bomb shelter, or secluded their dwelling, or stocked their root cellar is, because it will end at God's hand, not a bomb, not a nuclear winter, not a carbon overloaded-sky-climate change.

I am not saying that you ought not to be prepared for the future, if you are headed for a trip in the mountains, by all means, grab your coat and put the chains in the trunk. But for crying out loud, do not worry and do not borrow trouble that is not there for you.

What business is it that these purveyors of doom and worry are in? You find them every where, selling nearly everything, everything but real peace and contentment. They will even sell you false mind-numbing contentment if you want it. They will convince you you have some crisis. They sell you themselves and their ideas, they sell you products to stave off the end of the world or at least protect you, or numb you, but mostly what they are selling you is anxiety, worry and a fraudulent product.

Y2K bring back any memories for anyone? A contrived crisis, where no one was reminded to rely on God but instead they were sold millions of dollars of "survival goods." The only business that hurt from that one was the sorry fellas that don't know how to be good hucksters: find or contrive a weakness, a fear; strike it; suck it for all its worth; and then move on to the next thing.

Some purveyors of panic are very good, very discrete, you can hardly tell what they are up to, it all seems so sweet and well meaning, and "golly, I was wondering about that too." No clear signs of selling fretfulness.

But then there are the others, that because no one calls out the selling of worry and whoa, doom and gloom, they are just plain bold, and the point is right there in their very own words.

Yes, they may be dressed up all cutesy in overalls and a floppy garden hat, or Victorian garb and dainty lace gloves, but their message of looming crisis is strong and unabashedly bold in print. "Buy our product because there is a crisis on the horizon, a big one, a prolonged one. To make it through you need us."

They say their product brings you peace.

With that one Dear Christ-Follower, you ought to hear in your head, your gut, your heart, your spirit, the sound of a needle sliding across a rotating disc of vinyl.

No one brings peace in a crisis or in daily life but Christ. And Christ says not to worry.

Then why are you buying into a product that is wringing its hands on the sideline with a pitifully knit brow and tears in its eyes for the Unprepared?

And low and behold nine times out of ten the product is faulty. Food in tin cans can not last forever, grain once it is ground will loose its nutrition, and many seeds do not last for five years, albeit some last longer, but some last a little over a year.

Live right right now.

Don't by a bucket of stale right living and put it in your freezer to pull out when the crisis hits. Most plants for food take an average of three months to mature, the unprepared ground another month or two to prep, given even that the right crisis hits in the right season, what good is it to bank on a salvation that comes four months after the crisis?

Look, I'm not saying that it isn't a good idea to garden and learn to save seed, in fact that is what I am saying, learn to listen to the Holy Spirit, make your food today, save of your harvest what you know you will need for the next day's planting, be an ant, be wise, be fruitful but do not worry. There is a big difference.

I'm not saying to be indolent and then arrive at my back door or freeway off ramp when your belly is a little empty. Learn to work your soil and your muscles so that you are not found weak and un-knowledgeable. But that takes daily practice, not a bucket in your freezer to be pulled out when the crisis finally hits.

And if you have no soil of your own or your muscles are not what they used to be? Find an honest business that is there to fill your needs, your honest needs, not your pretend or sinful needs. Hire them to do what you cannot, there is nothing wrong with that. The concept of self-reliance is not only quite far fetched it is also not how we are to live.

We are to live in community, relying on each other no matter how painful and irritating that may be. But we are to do so with honesty and forthrightness. Not manipulating each other's base fleshly worries and oiling up our panic buttons.

Being in a line of work or having a fairly decent smattering of skills that could play along with the current "green" crisis business, it is very tempting to join hands and participate in the nonsense that could make cash for my hip pocket.

To part hand-wringers from their hard earned cash in a barely honest manner is very tempting, "everyone is doing it", and good people are participating and buying into it, why shouldn't I?

Why shouldn't I? Because it will make my Father's stomach turn? Because it will grieve the Holy Spirit in whom I ought to be relying on to teach me better ways?

Because it will continue to cause others to sin?

And golly, I really don't like the idea of drowning.

Okay, I'm Leavin' My Comfort Zone

And I'm weighing in on a T.V. show, a show that took a long time for the Vicks to finally watch and a show that I still only watch once it is half way through it's season.

But Simon and Kara are knuckle heads.  Okay, yeah I'm no singer not by a long shot and I've not produce much more than heads of lettuce and even that is dicey.  But I like to listen to music.  I like shows like Idol and SYTYCD because they remind me a bit of variety shows of my childhood.

And Siobhan Magnus is an incredibly versatile performer, who is phenomenally styled for a girl from her era.  Not to mention she has a voice that makes my skin shiver every time but especially this week.

The way that this crazy zany looking tatooed chick is able to hold her body, retain a shockingly flattering pose while walk down glossy steps in bizaddo spike heels, all the while singing, no, spinning a web, she must have had a secret life of having gone to finishing school or had her start in pageants. 

Kara and her nonsensical "you have one voice at the beginning and then you have this other"  and she thinks that's weird?  It is what set us up, she's gettin' you all moody and sultry like and then bam she loads you on, takes you up and up and wham!

Simon and Kara are what? Jealous, worried that what, ah crumb I can't analyze them past they are nuts.

Hey, like I said, I'm no expert, just a chick with sensitive skin.