Me, I am my kids' teacher

Carrying the camera with me in the mornings along with hoe and hose seems silly to some (probably because camera doesn't start with an "h" like hoe and hose).

So ...

Carrying the camera with me in the mornings along with coffee cup and clippers seems silly to some.

Stan is a bit embarrassed that I am taking pictures of our sparse garden babies. Somehow, it doesn't honor our heritage ... or pay tribute to the generations before us who were the salt of the earth. Those before us who dug the wells that we drink from (Deut. 6) ... who planted gardens and crops to feed themselves and survive (and fail). Who dug so that we could have "professional" jobs and live in the big city and have clean hands.

Who toiled and tilled. And got their hands dirty.

The earth skipped ME somehow ... the spoils of grocery stores and money and fast food. And being a spoiled kid. Why didn't I pay attention when mom and grandma were canning all of those green beans, vegetable soup and tomatoes in our basement with that giant canning contraption that made a lot of noise and seemed like it would explode any second?

One story of our family lore that my grandparents LOVED to tell on me is how I would bawl and squawl when mom forced me out to the green bean patch to pick. I would cry all the way down the rows. I remember that garden. Each of the 5,000 rows was five miles long. I was afraid of snakes out there. What's hilarious to me now is that we were in MICHIGAN where there are no scary snakes (hardly). Blue racers were scary, but they weren't much in the garden. I was petrified of garden snakes. Why?

Then we had to snap ALL of those stinkin' beans! My grandparents would sometimes take pity on me and take some of my snap load when mom wasn't looking, or let me have popsicle breaks. I think I would have wanted to smack me. Right now, I would give to have a big bowl of them to snap and eat raw. TOO YUMMY. Sitting there with Grandma and Grandpa Giles.

Life is easier when we do not dig our wells. But easy isn't always better.

Thanks God for letting us relearn the lessons we squandered.

Posted in: on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at at 2:14 PM