Hope

A few days ago I wrote about faith. Today's blog is about hope. I initially had plans to have pictures of Brian's soccer game...turns out he had a bye this week. Oops. Then I thought I could blog about Billy's talent show at church...well, tonight wasn't the show, it was practice. Oops. I think that the January calendar needs to be updated! Things don't always go as planned around here. Anyway, back to hope. Barack Obama's inauguration speech yesterday certainly was filled with hope....not going to get political here....but wow. He left me with a feeling of hope for change in our Nation for everyone.
But, that's not what this blog is about. This post is about a little something that brings me hope every January, when the winter has really taken a hold on us. When the days are short and the nights are long, when it's so cold that hot water freezes in the air, when it doesn't seem like winter could ever end....this bit of hope comes in the mail.
Ahhhh....the Gurney's seed catalog! Hope! Hope because it's time to start thinking about spring and gardening and plants and dirt and warm sunshine. Hope because if you're thinking of spring, summer can't be far behind. Hope because tiny little seeds can become big beautiful plants. I've always loved plants, mostly flowers, and look forward to planting them each spring. Can you tell that I'm a farmers daughter? My grandma and grandpa always had a big garden. When I was a little girl it was always a thrill when they would get the Gurney's 1 cent seed packet for my brother and I. Seriously, it cost 1 cent. There was a mixture of all kinds of different seeds in one packet. My rough and gruff grandpa would sort those tiny seeds for us with his big sausage fingers. I was so impressed that he knew what all of the seeds were. At least he said he did. They'd let us plant our own little row at the edge of the garden. We'd check to see how our plants were growing whenever we were there...pretty much every day. Looking back, those 1 cent packets were probably made with the seeds that fell on the floor and were swept up. But boy, there sure was a lot of hope put into that little packet of seeds!

We've never had much space for a vegetable garden here in the suburbs. But 9 or 10 years ago I decided that I wanted to plant a garden at the farm. I wanted to show the boys how things were done in the past. Show them where vegetables came from with the thought that maybe if they helped grow them they'd be better about eating them. :-) My dad laughed, said I wouldn't have time to mess with that, thought it was a crazy idea...but as he chuckled and shook his head, he got my grandpa's old rototiller going and helped me break the sod and work the soil for my garden. It's just the way he was, always willing to help, always wanting to be a part of things even if it was crazy. The soil was turned, I marked the rows, the boys looked for worms. I planted the seeds, the boys looked for worms. I watered and weeded, the boys looked for toads. I put up a fence to keep the rabbits out, the boys looked for frogs. They had dirt under their finger nails and were happy as could be. Me too.

The only thing that grew really well that first year were the sunflowers. They grew so tall they shaded the rest of the garden. We did have some pumpkins that grew, the boys thought that was really cool. After a couple of years with a garden, life got too busy to try to keep one up.

The next fall we had to go to a pumpkin patch for our pumpkins. The boys said, "this was fun, where did we get our pumpkins last year?" Ummm...we grew them...remember?...the big learning experience. Hmmm....I guess they weren't impressed. But looking back at that time brings some wonderful memories. Memories of my grandparents garden. Memories of my Dad shaking his head but helping me anyways. And hope that maybe when my boys are grown they'll remember those wonderful times. And maybe they'll think about planting a little garden of their own with thoughts of their grandpa....while their Mom shakes her head and helps them anyways.

So you see, hope does spring eternal when the Gurney's catalog arrives in the mail. Spring is on it's way.

Day 21 photo...a close up of statice from a scraggly little boquet.