In the Garden

There is literally something spiritual about being in the garden for the first serious visit of the new season. Good things pour through my spirit, as well as a few things to put behind me, but that's as it should be at this season of change. I spent some time in the orchard, and to be honest my kind of homesteading is truly dependent upon my spiritual walk. Failures indicate something I'm missing from YHWH. Isaiah 1:19 says, if we are willing and obedient, we'll eat of the good of the land . . . so if something isn't coming along so good of the land, I know there's a problem with my willingness or obedience.

I've said enough at my other blog to let you know we had some serious mess going on here last year. I tried to dress it up, make it seem less horrendous, but the bottom line is, I knew it wasn't part of YHWH's plan for me and I had my first inkling nearly a year before the major calamity. So, it wasn't like I wasn't warned, but I proceeded without caution. YHWH is gracious, it could have cost me everything, but so far it appears to have just cost me a few trees and a downsizing of the herd, and that's been enough! I hope I've learned my lesson, and I hope YHWH knows I've learned my lesson. I don't want to go around this mountain ever again! Too much of it seemed, maybe different circumstances, but all too familiar.

I have a new spot for a garden this year and I'm terribly excited about it. I had set it aside last year for my daughter and son-in-law, and I don't even remember why that didn't suit them. Anyway, my little donkey grazes all day with the goats, but every evening for the past year I've tuck my sweet little Azalea in that spot, and I know I don't have to tell you, it's well fertilized. I spent part of the afternoon changing some fence around it and checking my loss in the orchard from last year. That was part of that willing and obedient situation, and got the dirt and mulch around the trees, then headed to the big garden. I live in the Ozarks so today in the garden, as I raked rocks . . . I began envisioning my planting pattern.

I've got all sorts of new things I want to plant and big plans for raising my own livestock feed, so I don't have to pay the big bucks for organic to avoid GMO. Besides, the term "organic" is pretty vaguely and loosely defined. I know what's in the soil I'm planting in here, and I know what I use for fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides. I already mentioned the organic fertilizer. My hoe and my hands are the herbicides and free range chickens are the pesticides!

I did feel a twinge of "The Little Red Hen Syndrome" today. As I was out working in the garden, I couldn't help but remember my daughter last year alluding to that. Here she was harvesting what I had tilled and planted and she didn't feel that she was getting enough help preparing dinner! Anyway, as I stood out there, having sounded the warning about the scary foods people are eating and the preparation that needs to be taking place, I couldn't help but ponder the enigma in my own mind. What would I do and how much would I share with people who already have this information? Now the young and those who aren't aware, that's easy, no problem. I'm happy to offer food and shelter to the lambs. With that YHWH reminded me that He and I had other things to discuss. So, I took my shoes off and enjoyed the sun in the garden.

There is nothing like being barefoot, and talking to YHWH, in the garden!