Spring is here, School is out, and We are Sowing

Spring has finally reached us here in the mountains, and I have been working in the yard all morning. I've planted snapdragon's, pansies, peas, spinach, lettuce, beets, onions, and carrots. In a couple more weeks, I can finally plant everything else.

School got out last Friday, and Dillon is LOVING having "his boys" around all day. I have to admit that I looked forward to school getting out, too, in a way that I never have before.

I've decided that you can't miss the diapers and the sleepless nights until they are gone, and now I have this whole new perspective (and a little more energy). We have some fun activities planned for this summer. Hopefully I'll get around to posting some of them.

As I was planting, the words to this hymn were going through my mind. I once read somewhere about how this song was an answered prayer to a mother who had a child with autism. Reading through the words while thinking of her, and of parenting in general, brought new meaning to the song for me.

We are sowing, daily sowing

Countless seeds of good and ill,

Scattered on the level lowland,

Cast upon the windy hill;

Seeds that sink in rich, brown furrows,

Soft with heaven’s gracious rain;

Seeds that rest upon the surface

Of the dry, unyielding plain;

Seeds that fall amid the stillness

Of the lonely mountain glen;

Seeds cast out in crowded places,

Trodden under foot of men;

Seeds by idle hearts forgotten,

Flung at random on the air;

Seeds by faithful souls remembered,

Sown in tears and love and prayer;

Seeds that lie unchanged, unquickened,

Lifeless on the teeming mold;

Seeds that live and grow and flourish

When the sower’s hand is cold.

By a whisper sow we blessings;

By a breath we scatter strife.

In our words and thoughts and actions

Lie the seeds of death and life.

Thou who knowest all our weakness,

Leave us not to sow alone!

Bid thine angels guard the furrows

Where the precious grain is sown,

Till the fields are crown’d with glory,

Filled with mellow, ripened ears,

Filled with fruit of life eternal

From the seed we sowed in tears.

We went "shopping" in our back lot and found the stumps that are holding our pots this year. I think I'm going to spray paint that top one robin egg blue. One of the stumps has a branch sticking out of it and I'd like to hang something there. Any idea's??

I have to share Todd's experience at the farm store this morning. He went to get some potting soil, and while he was there, I asked him to buy those pots that are hanging from the red ladder in the picture above.

He was carrying one of them around the store (he had to go back again because he missed the memo that I wanted two) when he ran into our neighbor. It's been known to happen in this small town.

Our (cowboy) neighbor looked at him and said, "I can tell just by looking at you that you're "honey doin'."

Todd held it up and said, " Yeah, I don't usually buy stuff like this."

I don't know what their

problem is. If I were a man, I'd buy those pots...