Olympics and Gardening, what you say?

My philosophical take on Olympics.
Anyone that planted a garden this spring here in Michigan has had some sort of surprise. The early warm spell followed by freezing temperatures and then the hot dry weather of summer has caused all sorts of challenges. When to water, how much to water, where are the pollinating bees? No matter what I do how come the beans don't grow? Why are those cute little rabbits and ground hogs performing their own harvest of my veggies? I can only attempt to imagine how these conditions affect those farmers who depend on crops for a living. A friend who raises "grass fed" cattle to augment his income is bringing them to slaughter several months and a few hundred pounds early because without rain there is no grass to feed them. A loss of thousands of dollars. Multiply that into unimaginable costs for a full time rancher or farmer. Billions of dollars across the country. They'll make it through somehow, they've done it before, they are stubborn, hard working and resilient. It won't be easy but they will. And that is my point.

During this time of Olympic competition I am constantly reminded lately of what it takes to overcome and conquer the opposition. Olympians usually require training throughout their lives, constantly moving toward the next goal to gain the strength to persevere and win against the odds. (wasn't there a movie about that a while ago?) It is never more evident than at the world games just starting. Going full circle here: it is the constant battle of unexpected challenges that tests our mettle and brings us to succeed in our every day lives. If our lives run smoothly, as nice as that may sound, we learn nothing really. We watch the Olympics and cheer, yet we are surrounded by people who every day overcome obstacles just to get through the day. Strong people, brave people, determined, unselfish people of character who strive to make this a better world. Sometimes we forget them because they don't wear bikini's and play beach volleyball or grease up for swimming or jump higher than anyone else. We meet them every day, they are all around us.

I enjoy the Olympics. They remind me of the struggles we all face. When it comes to winning or losing, that's the way life is. Score: beans-0  zucchini-a gazillion

Gardening and life are personal

Leave my garden alone!! I don't want anyone messing with my garden, period! Stay out!

I've been gardening since I was a kid. My first ever produce, grown all by myself was a pumpkin. From then on I was hooked. Not having to rely on gardening to feed me allowed plenty of room for experimentation. My gardens have experienced varying degrees of success and failure. My worst failures have mostly resulted from crowding plants together during the planting stage. I have difficulty imagining the expansion of a plant as the growing season moves along. But, I always have hope that I did it right when each year begins. Gardening is a wonderful thing and my table has been blessed with mounds of vegetables and fruits fresh from those gardens. As a matter of fact, family, friends and neighbors have also enjoyed much of the healthy and flavorful benefits of my faithful gardening. Everyone benefits. But I want everyone to stay away from my garden.

The past couple of years some very well intended people have been offering advice and assistance to me in getting my garden in order. "Put this plant here, put that seed there, measure, fertilize, stake, weed and thin. Let me help you harvest it.You'll have a beautiful garden for once and we can all have better vegetables too." Jeez, Louise! Leave me alone, will ya? Truthfully, if I wanted a perfect garden I am totally capable of creating it. I really am! I totally appreciate the helpful folks that want to solve what they see as my problem. It's great to have people around that care about me and what I do. Wonderful as it is, I don't want their help. Let me alone when I'm in my garden. In my garden, I rule! I also accept all the consequences of my actions and decisions. My garden is my little slice of sanity in an otherwise confusing world. The government, as yet has not drawn up enough laws to mess up my gardening. I am still free to succeed or fail on my own. That's why I don't want anyone telling me what to do. It makes me feel too much like control. I don't want to be controlled or taken care of.

I enjoy the food from my garden. I grew it, for better or worse. When I have surplus, which is most of the time, I share it with everyone in sight. Many times, placing a bag of fresh goodies on someones porch anonymously so when they come home or wake up they have a tasty surprise. I like doing that. Sure, most of them know right away who put it there but usually they honor my desire to be an unknown benefactor. It's more fun that way. The people that wanted to help me out also expressed how they would help me distribute the harvest. I didn't like that either. When you give someone something from your surplus it's fun. When you are "told" to divide up the entire harvest the fun fades really fast.

That's my take on the gardening thing for today. I passed on the helpful hands offered me by caring and considerate people. I am in the midst of putting my garden together and planting shoots and seeds and fertilizing and all sorts of weeding and tilling and staking and stuffing seeds, plants and bulbs way too close together. I don't know what the harvest will be this year but I know it will be mine to do with what I want. There is a lot to be said for that feeling. As I said: "I love ya dearly but stay the heck out of my garden."

More about the mean old guy

As we meandered out the door chatting about how we were today, baseball season coming on and my grand kids he listened intently with a bright smile on his face. It was difficult to remember how he was feared by almost every kid in the neighborhood. He didn't smile back then. He worked almost constantly at two jobs and when he was home he busied himself in his garden or with the chickens or rabbits. The only time I saw him doing anything else was on Sunday morning when the whole family went to church. They arrived early at the first service of the day, which at the time was 6:30am. They also sat in the very last pew way in the back all by themselves. He didn't look mean to me sitting in church like that with his wife and kids around him. They stayed sitting after the service until most everyone else was gone and then they walked back home after usually saying something to the pastor. Then they spent most of the day in the house and garden.

His three kids went to middle school about four blocks away. Somehow the mean old guy managed to walk with them every day. Those kids seemed just like every other kid except they didn't go out for lunch or recess. They also took off a lot of sick days. And, although they were not rude and did talk a little with other kids they didn't mix with them at all after school. That added to the rumors. Some kids said they heard from another kid that the mean old guy kept those kids as slaves in the basement and only let them out to go to school and they were probably fed some kind of mind control drug to keep them from talking about being slaves. They certainly didn't act like slaves when I stopped by to collect for the paper or bring my seed catalog.

Today is a garden day for me. Replacing some plants that were frozen out and putting in some new. Fresh food from the garden is a real treat. The old mean guy seemed to know that too
..........................Joe