More Friday Happenings

Bright and early Cory and Benny and Danny showed up. Cory had found an ad for a family moving into state who had cardboard to be hauled away. He and the boys picked up Michael's truck, got cardboard and two more loads of wood chips today.  

Danny & Benny - 📷by Cory 

The girls and I headed out at 0800 for breakfast. With finals and life we've not been out for a bit for our study. Sometimes life is hard and the three of us ended up laughing so hard, the GIRLS snorted, and we all cried. This all started as we shared how to pronounce Habakkuk...and then looked it up online...later we queried others.  It was good. 

Receiving a gift from Jennifer, an online friend, while at the cafe was the icing on the cake of life. Our local community/social circle has shrunk in the past months - but the online communities: missionary kid community, ministry community, blog community and military community have sure walked with us...and we love them even more for it. 

We went home by 1000 so Stacia could have a Japanese lesson. The boys enjoyed the time to play with Allie on the trampoline.  The girls had lunch and we met at Bre's for our Colony Day adventure.  

I laid a couple of boxes out in the garden until it was time for me to go to a counseling appointment where we continued to discuss HARD things, and community building, and faith. Josh continues to assure me I am not in danger of losing my faith. I am honest with God and my emotions. In fact, he shared I appear to have a deep faith...and others may not know how to handle me because we've gotten used to quick, happy, social-media meme faith. I'm living with faith and God in the broken and messy places. AND, since I'm allergic to the happy church face thing...it's a bit raw and authentic for the very ones who say they desire authenticity in faith. Hmm...do we really? More to think about. This I know...God is with me. Always with me. Still with me.  He sits with me in the messy. He heals the broken. 

We received news of a local hurting family. We made plans to reach out. We had dinner - trying to eat without a sink is interesting. I was not in the mood to watch TV ... the garden is a great place to relax at the end of the day and process.  I miss summer nights around the campfire. 

I love the wood chips! It looks so much more like a real garden! LOL Everything is biodegradable and so as the garden grows we can till it all into the ground. 

Note the red chair and little tea stand. I moved it around trying to find the best place for it. I thought I'd move it to the back and could see the entire garden...but then I realized I didn't want my back to the woods where I couldn't see moose and bear approaching...but then I realized I was sitting at the front and the moose came from the direction of the house. Hmmm...and then I realized the red chair makes one lean back very far and isn't a very alert position. It was getting chilly anyway, so I went to the chair in the green house. Stacia and Millie found me there and we had a nice discussion. She also misses the evenings of visiting....so it's time to switch from winter vegging to interspersing times around the table or campfire or in the garden - especially during the lovely LONG summer evenings. 

I decided it's only right to show you the areas of the garden space we have NOT tamed yet. LOL 

All the areas behind the metal baptistry and hoop house and then to the south of the hoop house are still a horse pasture covered with weeds and thistles. 

We are so THANKFUL for all the hard work Cory put into this project this week! In many ways it's an "extra" project we wouldn't have gotten to at all. The garden would have been planted but the weeds would have continued to win the morale war. As I set and pondered, I decided a pavilion is too much for this year with all the other projects, just getting the weeds tamed with chips is a good garden project for this year.  I do think I am going to paint the outside of the weather looking garden beds. I will do some thinking on if I can do that now or need to wait until we harvest this year's crop.  I'm thinking some fun colors would appeal to grands. 

Michael continued to wrestle with our kitchen plumbing. He has poured a gallon and a half of liquid plumber down our drains, he's taken them apart and snaked them out, there is sludge he can't reach. He talked with Luke, our son in law who is a plumber, and is going to try to rent some jet-propelled pump to get it unclogged. Meanwhile the unwashed dishes from Thursday sit. I so appreciate Michael and Cory.