Day 6-7: Aesthetics

I'm losing track of how many days I've been working so I think this will be my last "day #" post.

This morning felt great, not just because of the weather, but also because I got to rest my legs yesterday and found I was able ride my bike in my highest gears the whole way, even on the hills, which means that riding 5 days a week is actually getting me in shape. I love that I can do both biking and gardening together.

I was hoping to see my veggies starting to peek out of the soil, but it's not quite time yet. It's been seven days since I planted them, so at some point by the end of this week they will be appearing. So with that as the reality of the day, that meant I wouldn't get to lay down my new bag of sugarcane mulch that my friends gave me. So I watered the plot, and then I decided it was time to tackle all the weeds and grass that was covering the other parts of the garden.

I cleared one whole side of the yard that had not bee weeded in a long time and was really starting to feel some fatigue in my fingers as well as my arms and back. I decided once again to try and find a metaphor that would help me stay motivated to be diligent in weeding that area. The first thing that stood out to me was that these weeds I was pulling, had absolutely no effect on the health of my vegetables and was really not needing to be done. The second thing that came to mind was that it really didn't look good at all with the weeds there. These both came together for me and showed me that if I want my garden to be a blessing to others, I would need to to make it as inviting as possible for them, so that they want to go and eat from it. Weird I know, but I say it that way so that I can make the metaphor clear. I realized that many people would look at the garden and not see past the weeds that surround it to see that the vegetables and herbs were great, and that might keep them from being able to experience the blessing inside.

So with this I was seeing how if my life was a garden, I have a lot of great things deep inside of it that would be good and would feed others, but if I don't pay attention to the weeds and trash on the outsides of my life, people will never enter to find what's really inside. One weed that came to mind that I've been able to clear out is swearing, which I used to do all the time in high school. I don't have a moral conviction against it and I would say that it doesn't affect the core fruits and veggies I have to offer, but I know that for some they would see it as a weed and would have no desire to enter. I don't want to focus on my aesthetics than my garden, but I do want to be applying time when I have it, to make myself as inviting as I can. It sounds cheesy, but it helped my weed that whole section of the yard.

The other side of it of course, is to not judge someone else by the weeds that you first see when you meet them. I'm finding that everyone has weeds surrounding their garden/life, but everyone also has amazing exotic fruit trees, and vegetables that I need, and am not able to grow in my garden/life. It's a challenge to look past the weeds, and also maybe help them with the weeds.

Okay, I think that's enough of that analogy. All in all I'm loving each morning, and get excited just thinking about seeing the seedlings pop up, laying out some mulch, adding to the compost, weeding the other sections that need it, and whatever else I'll need to do.

Oh, planted two sunflower seeds in separate newpaper pots for an intercession time that we had last week, and I've been taking good care of them. Once they are a good size I'll be transplanting them somewhere. So when they pop up as well, I'll try and get some photos. Hope you're enjoying this blog as much as I am. It's a bit long I know. At least you don't have to hear my talk about it, because I say a lot more than I write.