Spring has, um...

We're still here, recovering from nearly month-long colds and various travel and busy-ness (as usual). And now that it's over five days after the beginning of spring, I want to reassure everyone that the warming season is truly upon us because (wait for it) WE CAN SEE GRASS HERE! There's still vestiges of snow on it, and it's twenty-three degrees out, but still. Where there's grass, there's hope, right?

Fruitfulness, Round Four

Last week, post-yard-sale and some back labor excitement, Papa picked tomatoes from the garden. This is what the counter looked like after I'd cleaned half of the take from three five-gallon buckets.

As they say up here: Uff-da.

Suffice it to say, we've had a bumper garden harvest this year. Since early August, I've been freezing green beans, sweet corn (not from our garden but from three different church members--sweet corn had a good year here, too), preparing eggplant and squash and cucumbers, and this month we've been tackling the pepper and tomato haul. Yes, it's been a lot of work. We're also very thankful the garden has borne such bounty, especially considering the late spring and the fact that we were gone for four weeks after Papa planted. So Nancy, if you're reading this and still at all concerned that your watering efforts in July went to waste, please, PLEASE fret no more. God used your efforts to great success. In fact, our tomato load last week was the fourth round of our tomato haul. The first resulted in twelve pints of hot salsa and seven quarts of tomatoes in their own juice. The second begat twelve pints of mild salsa and multiple quarts of peeled, frozen tomatoes. The third produced over twelve gallons of frozen tomatoes (see how my energy with each round diminished?). The fourth round, by sheer size alone, demanded extra effort.

So last week when I decided to make tomato sauce with all two-thirds of Papa's latest picking, I had a lot of time to think about garden harvests and familial blessings. Sitting in the kitchen, destemming and slicing up countless tomatoes for what turned out to be over ten quarts of sauce (which, if you've done this before, means roughly sixty pounds of tomatoes were involved), and wincing every time Baby decided to make his presence known (the guy's running out of room!), I pondered the mysteries of fruitfulness.

Papa's planted a garden every summer we've been here, and we've had some good years. He's rotated placement, Miracle-Gro-ed, swapped out different varieties of produce, tried different spacing. He's tried onions and radishes with little success. This year, he tweaked again, but not enough to account for the haul. Our backyard neighbors planted a few tomato plants scarcely twenty feet from our garden and didn't get a single tomato for their work. Yet we planted and basically left the little green squirts alone and now find ourselves inundated.

It's not fair, in the whole scheme of things. I'm ten months pregnant. Why all this work at this particular time? But what a silly response. I could dwell on the effort such bounty requires to preserve and sustain, but that seems beyond ungrateful. It doesn't even make sense. Gardens by their very nature are supposed to produce. And when they do, we give thanks. On the flip side, our bounty seems unfair to all the gardeners who spend this month wondering what went wrong. It would seem judicious if everyone got at least a little something for all of their gardening efforts, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. Sometimes the rabbits and birds wreak havoc. Sometimes the weather soaks or scorches. Sometimes seeds and seedlings just don't take due to soil or weeds or for causes we can never determine. Experts have spent and still spend countless hours attempting to explain why things grow and why they don't. But even finding reasons why things don't grow can't suddenly make them grow. Even having all kinds of scientific answers as to how and why life can happen can't actually create and sustain life itself.

Gardens are one thing; families and children quite another. I think of my friends and others whose arms and hearts ache with emptiness, from children desired and children taken to Jesus. Like agricultural scientists and researchers and farmers, doctors and specialists can only explain so much. This is not to diminish their God-given expertise and aid in any way. It is only to say that they are not God, and they cannot act as Life-creater. Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking they can be, that technology or drugs or some combination of scientific theory and practice in the hands of certain people can do what only God can do. But we also see too much suffering and tragedy to believe such a lie. Seemingly healthy children die young. Healthy women are infertile. And children who should not statistically survive do. My sister and I are such exceptions. We were born over thirty years ago at  twenty-eight weeks gestation. We were given less than a ten percent chance of survival at birth, but we both did. And only God knows why. We can speculate, of course. But the truth is that we don't know. And we can only trust that God's ways are best, even when we don't know His reasons for life or for death, for fruitfulness or for barrenness.

Such may sound glib or callous, an easy write-off for unanswerable burdens that provides no comfort. Instead, it is a life-saving trust in a sea of loss and suffering. We pray a meal prayer sometimes that begins with verses from Psalm 145: The eyes of all look to You, O Lord, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand; You satisfy the desire of every living thing (14-15). We give thanks for the nutrients God provides us for our bodies. We acknowledge that only He can give us what we need, when we need it, be it food or health or children or any number of gifts. And ultimately, whether we like it or not, we bow to the inevitable scarcity or abundance that He provides, as He sees fit. We don't like this, because it means our efforts mean, well, nothing in the face of whether God withholds or blesses.

But we also know that His gifts are always good. His good gifts always satisfy our greatest need--that we need Him, that we are, in fact, completely helpless apart from Him. And He provides for us in multiple ways, too, just not always in the forms we desire or expect. Neighbors bring extra asparagus and apples (or get five-gallon buckets of tomatoes). Some years are corn-heavy and tomato-light. Some arms hold one child or two or many, biological or adopted, and others hold nieces or nephews or godchildren or congregational children. Regardless, we receive. And--this is a hard truth--if God ordains that we should bodily starve or bear the cross of barrenness or loss, we trust that His ways are not our ways, His care not ours. This is a terrible truth, but one on which our very lives depend. Abraham wielded a knife over his only son. Mary watched hers be pierced and nailed and suffocate and die. Both wept and ached and suffered. But none more so than He who made them to begin with, Who bore and bled and died and rose to give us life that would never end, that would never stop giving.

Our family waits and prays in these days for God to bless us with another child, who is our fourth living one. This baby has grown unseen and mostly unknown, though we cherish our time with his kicks and his hiccups, even his sunny-side up turn. God knows the days He has prepared for this little one, and we trust in His promises for us and for our child, that He will never leave us or foresake us, though we all will pass someday from this veil of tears. And so we give thanks for His mysterious bounty, in all of its forms. Bless us, O Lord, and these Your gifts, which we receive from Your bountiful goodness. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Spring, Incoming

Sunshine and blue skies with snow portend of brighter days ahead.

It's sleeting and snowing here today, which isn't the greatest mood-lifter. But as our Little Professor pointed out today, spring officially begins in just a few weeks! Let's just say we're counting down the days. Yes, we know that the snow will last here for probably at least another month. But it's waning snow, heavy snow, and flowers can still come up through the wet, last vestiges of winter. And that's great news.

Remembering Elwood

In honor of Veteran's Day today, here's a little thing I wrote in September 2007, about an experience Papa and I had before the premier of Ken Burns' documentary The War.

***

We drove down to Luverne in the late afternoon to meet up with dear friends and their four children. When we arrived, the kids were checking out the vintage cars parked in front of the courthouse, where locals were scheduled to speak before a parade to the Palace Theater where the showing would be. Their youngest wondered how the convertible owners could get the hoods on fast enough should rain appear, as the gears were manual. The sky overhead misted with gray clouds and threatened to test his theory.

We went to dinner at the Pizza Ranch two doors down from the newly renovated Palace. Our meal was a quiet, happy time—our friends asked their kids to eat salad along with their pizza, a teenage waiter brought us fried chicken since the buffet was out, we laughed and caught up on news since the last time we had visited—until the evening news, broadcast on a largely ignored big screen in the middle of the restaurant, turned to a segment on Ken Burns’ visit to Luverne and the film’s premiere. All of a sudden the conversations stilled and everyone turned to watch. But it was only a moment, and the sound was low, and we soon resumed our conversations and our laughter.

 

The rain came during dinner—we watched it evolve from glistening sheets to half-hearted pitter-patter—and by the time we emerged, mints in mouth, the sun was trying to break through the still ubiquitous clouds. We walked back to the courthouse to find the presentation had been cancelled (and the cars with their hoods up), and we returned to the Palace, fearful the “red carpet” processional would be cancelled too. That would be our big moment, the chance to see Ken Burns for a fleeting moment. The kids and I strategized as to how to get Mr. Burns’ autograph for my long-distant sister—perhaps the youngest daughter could trip in front of him and after he asked what he could do—because he would be unfailingly polite—she would smile winsomely and whip out the little pad and pen.We giggled at our plans.

Some great kids and I, excitedly waiting.

 People milled here and there, as forties era music played over loudspeakers. Most were dressed casually; the American Legion members who had the honor of holding the flags at the entrance of the theater tried to figure out what order to be in as onlookers tried to figure out the best place to stand. I saw a man with a World War II veteran hat on, standing nearby. 

I love meeting veterans, especially ones who've lived long and seen much, whose young adult-hoods were consumed by sacrifices I, now a young adult, can't even begin to comprehend. So I approached the man with the hat and thanked him for his service. He smiled and said, “Thank you for thanking me.” I said something, protesting politely, about he was the one who should be thanked, and his face grew serious and he looked me close, and said, “Young lady, there’s only one thing you should remember. Four hundred and seven thousand boys just like me went to war, and they never came home. It is because of what they gave that we can live the way we do.” His eyes were misty.

The man told me his name—Elwood, from Chandler, Minnesota. He served as a junior officer in the Navy —“not anything real important”—in the south Pacific, and he served on a ship for over 700 consecutive days. No leave. “It was one month shy of two years,” he said. His daughter came up and he showed me her shirt—on the front was his name and a picture of his 21-year-old self in Navy whites. On the back was the ship on which he sailed and the places he landed, the last being Okinawa. Reverently, he told me how they landed there on Easter morning, 1945.

He spoke of how little young people know about the war and about the world generally. Not disparagingly, but sadly. “They must learn about what happened,” he said. Not to honor him, but to remember and understand the sacrifice of all the young men who never came home.

One of many memorials we saw.

What a terrible burden it is, to live proud of the service you gave, and every once in a while to be honored for that service, but to know that you are honored because you lived, and loved and worked, and so many others—your friends, your neighbors, your cousins and brothers—never left the far-away places of war. They never reaped earthly joys of cherishing wife and children, friends and neighbors. They never experienced the daily, simple toil of farming on land long held by kinsmen, of growing old and going out for cups of coffee to commiserate about the price of soybeans. They never came home.

As I listened to Elwood, I blinked to stop my sudden tears and my eyes caught the top of the Hotel Manitou, one built by dedicated hands early in the twentieth century. I thought, “We live such comfortable, leisurely lives, without even thinking of it.” Standing on a dusky street, smelling the wet pavement, watching the excitement of people who have lived comfortably because of others' service—these are priceless times of privilege that we take for granted. Elwood's story reminded me, shocked me really, of the quotidian things that those boys that never came home relinquished freely. Their sacrifice is both awesome and terrible. 

And their sacrifice enables us, the living, to laugh over pizza, to debate over rainy weather predictions, to gather together for civic events with loved ones. Ironically, their awful sacrifice often means we forget them as we move along, ahead. We even forget the ones who did come home, like Elwood. But we shouldn't, and we can't. It is because of what our veterans gave that we can live the way we do. And the living veterans deserve our honor and our thanks, just as we remember their brothers buried far away, for what they have given us.

***

We ended up seeing the premiere and Ken Burns, which was a great experience. But I am more grateful that I met Elwood that day, who reminded me then, and today, to whom I and my children, and all Americans, owe immeasurable thanks.

Late Summer Moments

Yesterday, I took a few pictures of some sweet summer moments. After the last few weeks of convalescence--somehow I got strep, but luckily, Papa and the kids didn't--the quiet normalcy of watching our sons and our daughter was a gift. P pulled out a great two-fer, completing his first self-portrait and writing his name by himself with no prompting. Then he "framed" it on the refrigerator with letter magnets. I had to capture his dual masterpiece for posterity.

As I snapped that picture, C babbled on the floor next to me. She's sitting up by herself now, balancing very well, and a few times a day she even pulls herself up--to look into the bathtub at her brothers, to try to grab books off of a shelf. I've been telling people that even though she's a baby, she's not a baby anymore. Today, as Papa and I rocked on the front porch with C, watching the boys pedal on tricycles on the walk, C reached for me as Papa held her. She looked directly into my face and said, "Ma-ma." We were both moved. Especially when, with a little prompting, she looked at her father and said, "Pa-pa."

I couldn't pick just one. I mean, could you?

After such great pictures of C on the floor, I just had to run outside and capture the boys in action. Our back deck is finally gone--it was old, with a crimped design, and we've wanted a patio for years. Anyway, as I walked out of the back, this is what I saw.

Then I found the boys in the tomato patch, wearing their swimming trunks. Because where else do boys go in their swimming trunks than in the tomato patch?

P and S told me they were pretending the tomato patch was a forest. So there you go.

Papa's been canning consistently these last few weeks--salsa, medium and super-hot, and tomatoes in their own juice--and yet the tomatoes keep coming. August, particularly late August, is tomatoes, I think. Especially Papa's tomatoes.

The boys finally made it over to their swimming pool. Most of their toys spend more time in their pool than they do. Lately they've enjoyed playing in the dirt where the deck was after they get wet. Ah, the joys of children playing!

Happy end of summer, dear ones. May you enjoy a few lovely moments in these waning warm days.

Apple-Picking in the Fall

I know, I know--the world is already into Christmas mode now that we've passed Turkey Day. And I'm so behind I almost considered not posting these pictures. But as a last hurrah to fall and to the quick passage of time, here's some pictures from our visits to a local apple orchard last fall (2010) and this fall. It's neat to see how much the boys have changed! I think this will be a family tradition come late September/early October. We love it! (Especially eating the apples that we accidentally dropped. Yes, accidentally.) Few things taste as good as apples eaten in the orchard where they've grown! And next year, God willing, we'll have three little pickers to take along. :)

2010 Stonegate Orchard Visit 

2011 Stonegate Orchard Visit

 

From Early Spring...

These pictures were taken in mid-April, when the sun was finally beginning to shine a little warmly.

Aside from the toy-eating, much has changed. Now S fits into the pullover P's wearing here. And he can say about 48 more words than he could in April. And P now knows that winter follows fall, and that orange leaves mean it's fall. He's still working on what comes after winter. I know. After the big freeze, it's hard for me to remember, too. At least we can enjoy the wonderful months of spring summer!