Ladybugs on Dill and Garden Philosophy

Weeding the garden yesterday...
the children were playing somewhat peacefully in the sprinkler....
my mind started to ponder the similarities between gardens and children....

I love my gardens almost as much as my children, really I do. I have been a gardening fanatic since I spent many a hot summer hoeing corn, picking green beans, and carrying buckets of water to nearly 50 tomatoes plants in my parent's 1/2 acre garden. It's true, I swear! It was a very large garden and it seemed more like 10 acres, especially when my little brother would fall asleep on the straw bales and leave me to do the hoeing. Ah, the fond memories of childhood. My memories that is .... the rest of my family don't remember my hard sacrifice.... Am I getting old? I must be..... a sure sign of aging is remembering things that others have forgotten .... (or maybe it's the other way around, can't remember right now....)

Anyhow, as you will remember from this post, I have been mourning the sad state of my vegetable garden this year. As much as I want my garden to be beautiful and produce lots of produce (is that redundant?), I cannot for the life of me MAKE it do it. Oh, I can give it the best chance possible by planting in a timely manner, watering, weeding, fertilizing, weeding, mulching, watering, controlling pests, and more weeding.... but I can't MAKE it produce anything. There are too many other variables I cannot control. This year, the rogue variable has been the cool weather. My garden is SO far behind what it should be, and short of building a huge greenhouse to warm the garden.... I can do nothing.

And that's where I am with my children. I nurture, feed, love, protect, encourage, discipline.... but I cannot MAKE them mature into the happy, healthy, God-loving, well-grounded adults I wish them to be. There are too many variables..... and that leaves me feeling vulnerable and scared and overexposed.

And much like with my garden,
all I can do is get down on my knees
(well I was already there, weeding)
and pray for an extended season.

The gift I am unwrapping today is the truths I discover while gardening
and my sweet shots are these lovely ladybugs.