God's Garden or if all else fails, the lemonade stand

I can't say it's ALL in, but as of this weekend, the garden will be entirely planted.  There are no words except to say, that is a miracle.  We had an entire room of seedlings that needed to be planted and we had so much bed prep to do, so much irrigation to set up, so many rows to mark off....we had no idea how it was going to happen.  On the Saturday and Sunday, RM and I would just look at each other with eyes that said, "What have we done?"  Then we would literally stop midday and try to deeply breathe as we were feeling growing levels of stress and, dare I say, panic.  Why panic?  Because this year, for the first time ever, we had paying customers who expect vegetables when you say you are going to deliver vegetables.

I sent out a distress text asking for prayer to family members and a couple of close friends.  That day was awesome.  Everything was going smoothly.  I kept making vine balls as that was all I could do that day.  RM was the one driving the tractor, etc.  It was a great day.  It was the next day that we started bringing the transplants over that it started to sink in all that we had to do.  It was around 12 or 2 when we saw we had only planted a few rows that we were getting worried.  I sent out another text asking for prayer!

The older girls and I were in the garden when they started to touch on all my insecurities unknowingly.  "Why do we do things like this all the time?"  "Why can't we just grow a garden like normal people?"  "Why can't we just do ONE thing instead of a whole bunch of things all at once?"  And on and on, they went....These are all REALLY GOOD questions!!  I ask them myself!!  I think we were all feeling overwhelmed....but then the miracles started to happen....as they always do......

One at a time, friends of the kids started to arrive.  And suddenly I saw how our garden, as overwhelming as it was, was becoming the most amazing way to have people over, to interact with unbelieving kids, to give all of them purpose for living.  I would hand them flat after flat of vegetables and each row would get planted in minutes instead of the hours it would have taken me on my own.  I looked at the place I had set down the hundreds of transplants and as the door wore on, the place was eventually empty!  I couldn't believe it!

There were so many great conversations as one of these kids has been evangelized to by our family for years now.  Our garden rests at the top of a hill where the sun sets.  It is an amazing view as the sun goes down each night.  He stood there, as it was literally nearly 8:30 pm, and said, "I don't know why I don't believe in God when I see how beautiful it is here!  How amazing creation is!"  WHAT?!  That led into an incredible conversation where he and the kids and another Christian girl who had come over sat around the fire later on and once again he was preached to about his need for the Lord.  

So many of my kids' friends come from one child families.  When they arrive at our farm, there are people EVERYWHERE.  My house is loud, messy, and totally not what they are used to, but I think they enjoy it and so we support them coming over.  We keep praying for them as they are not believers YET.  How I pray that our garden, our home, our family will be a place of healing, love and industry for people like that. 

As each friend came over and as each person planted a plant or irrigated a bed, suddenly it became fun.  Suddenly my kids stopped asking us why we do what we do and instead were so glad that we do these crazy things.  I think they suddenly stopped questioning and instead realized what I had realized earlier that weekend that we were standing on holy ground and that God was at work THROUGH THE GARDEN.

One friend sent me an encouraging text with a verse from Genesis.  It reminded me that God's first home and first job for Adam was a GARDEN!!!  How amazing is that?!  So I read the verses to the kids yesterday.  I nearly fell over...

"When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up - for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground...."

Ok, that verse alone is amazing....."no small plant of the field"?  I bet that could be translated "transplant" or "seedling"!  And then it says, "sprung up".  I told the kids that even the expression "sprung up" is such a great picture of a plant springing up out of the ground quickly, immediately....how we long for that!  But, as the verse goes on it says "the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land...."  That says it all - the Lord God is the Gardener.  He is the one who causes plants to spring up.  He is the one who waters.  He is the one who determines when this all will happen.  And, He needs us as assistant gardeners.  He needed a man to "work the ground".  How can that be when work is equated with curses?  Because work ISN'T a curse!  Work is good!  Being in a garden, working in a garden is literally Paradise!  The curse that comes later is that" thistles and thorns is shall bring forth for you", "in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life", "by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread"....oh how true all of that is.....

However, at that time, pre-sin, gardening was awesome.  Verse 8 of chapter 2 says this, "And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.."  I love this verse!  God planted a garden.  Then He puts man there.  First home.  A garden.  How fantastic.  "And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food."  I didn't know what to pray before, now I do.  "Lord, please make every tree/seedling/transplant/seed to spring up!  May our vegetables be pleasant to the sight and GOOD FOR FOOD!!!!"  When you read that verse it is such a good reminder that we DO NOTHING to cause the vegetables to grow.  We think we are the ones who planted, but we aren't.  God even formed us, so we can't take credit for even the planting.  Nope.  We think we set up irrigation, but we didn't.  God created water to come up from under the earth!  From our well!  Who thinks up these things?!  We think we designed a really cool (and expensive) irrigation system, but we didn't.  RM has a brain that is incredible, but also given to him by God.  We think that we planted this garden, but no God planted it.  The Bible nailed it.  He put Adam there and He put us here.  

"The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it."  Not as punishment.  No curse yet.  Working and keeping a garden would have been fun!  A blessing!  A joy!  Is that why we all started to kind of enjoy the weekend as it went on?  It went from being stressful to amazing.  It went from wondering why we were doing this to now we know why we are doing this...gardening is a reflection of Paradise!  But....we aren't supposed to do it alone.  Adam was lonely.  He needed a helper....All throughout the weekend I thought to myself, "This is nuts.  I could NEVER do this by myself without RM helping me."  I even thought to myself, "He doesn't need me.  If I weren't here, he'd be fine without me."  But then, all throughout the weekend he would say to me, "I couldn't do this without you.  If you weren't a part of this, I would never have taken this on."  And it's not because I can drive a tractor, which I can, but not the way he does.  And it's not because I am good at organizing, because I'm not.  It's more because I share the vision.  I am his greatest encourager.  I'm all in because I see the bigger picture and so does he.  So in that sense, I am definitely his helpmeet and he needs me because I am right there beside him as he tackles the things I cannot do.  Straight from Scripture again.  The pattern is right in Genesis.

Later even though they sin, I still love the verse that says, "God walked through the garden in the cool of the day...."  Ok, he was looking for them, but He walked through the garden...it sounds pleasant, beautiful, soothing.  We love doing that.  We have chairs set up and after we walk through the garden in the cool of the day, we then sit and watch the sunset together most nights.  It's so wonderful.

To top it all off, I believe we were also spared a couple tragedies.  My 9 year had quite the bike spill and got a scraped elbow and leg.  But he's completely fine and has learned a good biking lesson.  My 12 year old was playing basketball and turned away from the net to go get the ball when suddenly the huge, heavy, tall net came crashing down.  In the years of being outside, the base had corroded and in that moment decided to break.  We would never have seen that coming.  It missed her by just a few feet.  If she hadn't moved out of the way to get the ball it would have either killed her or very badly hurt her.  I was right there when it happened and my breath was taken away.  We were spared and I knew it.  I thanked God over and over for His protection on her and for sparing us.

All weekend long the weather cooperated, too.  The machinery cooperated.  We didn't take that lightly either.  We knew that was a gift from God as well.

I could go on and on, but I have to go back to the clinic still.  It has been determined I have had an infection and am now on antibiotics for it.  Hopefully will heal fast.....

One last thing....if our garden fails, there is always the lemonade stand.  Our younger kids had it going all weekend and they made a small killing yet again.  I'm telling you, we are in the wrong busines....

Holy Ground

I am walking by faith every day.  I have no choice.  We are selling the harvest boxes slowly but surely, but not as fast as I want them sold!  What is oddly taking off is the sale of my vinecrafts.  I have a lot of orders!  I'm so amazed!  I have taken to going door to door to sell the harvest boxes just like a vacuum salesperson.  And, what is amazing, is that 1) I love doing it and 2) people love listening to the farmer up the street!  I even sold a couple doing that.  My sis-in-law helped me make a flyer and that really helped as I had something to hand over to people.

I also have discouraging times though.  It seems, big surprise, that you only learn the gardening business by making mistakes.  Why does it have to be that way!?  I knew I had to "harden off" the plants before they went outside permanently, but I didn't know they couldn't be out there for hours in the sun, so sadly, in the hardening off process, a few of the little seedlings passed on to plant heaven.  I was SOOOOO sad!  After all that work!  However, lesson learned, and today they won't go out for hours, but instead a much shorter amount of time and not in direct sun.  So annoying.  I can replant them, so it's not a huge loss, but still frustrating.

I'm in Joshua now and every time I open up the Word, I just beg God to give me something, to encourage me, to speak to me in some way.  I'm never disappointed.  Today it was Joshua 5.  After crossing the Jordan miraculously they ended up in a place called Gilgal and it says "they kept the Passover".  The next day, "on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land....And the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land.  And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year."

This passage is amazing.  After years and years, 40 to be exact, the manna stopped.  Years and years of faithfully being given what they needed every single day, suddenly the manna was no longer needed - why? - Because they ate of the produce of the land.  This has been my experience, too.  God has done this in our lives whenever there is a need particularly financial.  For example, braces.  We've had all of our older kids in braces, 5 of them so far, and apparently there are more coming.  We had no benefits for years and somehow, during that time, God provided the extra income needed and then when the braces were done, that source of income dried up.  It's inexplicable really.  This was exactly what happened with the Israelites, too.  For years they had no way of growing food in the wilderness, so God had to provide in a miraculous way, but when they moved into the land flowing with milk and honey, they no longer needed the manna and it suddenly stopped on "that very day" that they ate produce from the land.  I find this very encouraging because it tells me God knows what I need.  He knows all about my garden.  He knows when the seeds need to go in.  He knows when the irrigation needs to be set up.  He knows when the harvest boxes need to be sold and on what "very day" this all needs to happen.  The fact it talks about eating the "produce of the land" is, again, very cool to me.  It reassures me that we, and the people who have ordered boxes, will be eating the produce of the land when they are supposed to be eating the produce of the land, literally on what day they will start eating it!  And in the meantime, God will provide what I need, the "manna" that I need.   I have a funny feeling that during the Passover the night before, they gave thanks.  Is it coincidence that the next day the miracle of eating the produce of the land happened?  No.  You give thanks and then the miracle is imminent.

So, yesterday, I forced myself to do this.  I forced myself to thank God for everything that I didn't have that I thought I needed including the lack of orders, lack of irrigation supplies, dying seedlings. etc., etc. and by faith, I tried to trust God and thank Him for what I DO have including the many vine craft orders, the way I'm being taken care of daily at the clinic still, the meals that are still coming in allowing me to rest and heal, the beautiful weather....so many things.  Reading this passage this morning was great and reminded me that God is sovereign.  The final passage in chapter 5 confirmed what I was feeling.  It says, "When Joshua  way by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand."  Joshua then asks the man if he was for them or for their adversaries.  He says, "No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord.  Now I have come."  Joshua then falls and worships and the man tells him, "Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy."  I suddenly felt like Joshua.  It was like God was telling me, "You are standing on holy ground".  What He is doing in this garden experience is my holy ground.  He is doing something through this to sanctify me, grow my faith, grow my children's faith.  I don't necessarily have a man with a sword drawn in front of me, but I just need to be like Joshua and lift my eyes and look.  I need to look for where He's worked in the even just the past week.  We've had so many stories and I haven't even recorded them all.  For example we had a broken skid steer this past week.  That is a terrible machine to fix, but a crazy idea came to my husband.  Maybe it was just a simple wire that needed to be bypassed.  It was too simple, but to our amazement, it worked.  The garden was then completely filled with manure, 180 trips later, thanks to the fixed skid steer.  So amazing.

So, just minutes ago, RM and I walked to the garden and we talked with God.  We stood at the top of the hill and we just prayed for a Red Sea/Jordan River miracle.  I took my shoes off even, like Joshua, knowing we were standing on holy ground and we worshiped.  

Story Time

Where do I even begin?  I will try to document the last two weeks, but I have a feeling it isn't going to be short.  Sorry.  It's a series of stories.

The Tommy Story

It began a couple of weeks ago.  RM was on the tractor hoeing with the grape hoe attachment, beginning the never-ending attack on the weeds that were springing up everywhere, when out of nowhere, a black Pilot comes driving down the vines towards him, beeping as it went.  RM stopped the tractor, somewhat disoriented, "Where did this guy come from?"  Out popped a Vietnamese man with arms waving.  I could tell he was wanting work on our farm just by what RM was saying, "Oh, we're mostly pruned, just have to tie the vines......"  But this guy, Tommy, was relentless.  The next thing I knew, RM was gone and the truck was gone.  Where?!  I joke now that Tommy kidnapped him.  I still have no idea where they went, but I assume it was driving around looking at the vines.  I started praying right away, first of all, just in case he was kidnapped, that he would be safely returned, and then I started praying that RM would know what to do.  We've never hired workers.  We don't have any extra income for that kind of thing.  But I also wondered if there was a way and that RM would have a sense of discernment as to what to do.  

Next thing I know, the kidnapping was over.  Tommy returned RM to his tractor and took off.  RM came walking over to me and and said, "I hired him!"  I was so shocked and so happy at the same time.  Within minutes, Tommy had gone back to where he lives, picked up his wife and two others and they were in our vines fixing mistakes we had made apparently and rescuing us from ourselves.  We consider Tommy a vine angel.  He has been working in vines for over 25 years and is a literal expert in grape farming.  He shook his head at all that we had been doing and basically said, "You need to thank me for helping you. You don't know what you're doing.  I do.  I'll fix everything." And that's exactly what he's done.  In a matter of days he and his crew have repruned, retied...basically doing everything a vineyard needs to grow properly. You can tell just by looking at it that it has been done by professionals instead of us amateurs.  That's one aspect of the miracle.  

What has come out of this is a huge sigh of relief....by all of us.  Our kids were great workers, but having never worked in a vineyard before they really didn't know what they were doing.  They were also very busy and though they were being so faithful and diligent, they did have actual jobs or studying to do, they were having a hard time finding time to help as much as we needed them.  Tommy has stepped in and relieved our kids.  They are so grateful.

Tommy has also relieved my husband.  You never know the burden that is on your mind until it has been lifted sometimes.  Having a professional vinedresser in the vines has alleviated so much stress from RM.  He walks around with a new sense of peace and happiness because he knows that his vines are in good hands.  What Tommy has taken on has allowed RM to help me in the garden and has allowed RM to focus his time in places that will make him money.  Tommy keeps telling RM, "You make money....."

The Hay Story

How to pay for Tommy though, that was the question.  We rarely get paid for the hay on time.  We wait and wait and then we bug the people who owe us and then sometimes after all that bugging, it finally comes in and then they often don't pay what we asked for.  Not this time.  We not only got paid on time, but early, in our minds.  We didn't have to bug the people at all and they paid what we asked for.  This allowed us to pay Tommy and crew and that was such an answer to prayer.  We figured if God brought Tommy, remember he came to us, beeping down the vines, we didn't look for him, then God would help us find a way to pay for him and He did.

The Grape Story

Turns out Tommy is quite connected to other vine growers in the area and within days of connecting with him, he started connecting us with other growers.  One guy down the street no longer wanted to farm his grapes, but he wanted to keep the vines on his property.  He wanted someone like us to farm them for him and we would be able to have all the grapes in return for a couple of cases of wine.  Tommy said, "You should do this."  So off we went to meet the grape owner and within a couple of days, we had a handshake contract and are now farming two more acres of grapes which will be a great benefit to us come Fall.  Thanks Tommy!  Love this guy.  The irony is that 15 years ago, we would come out this way to go the wineries on this exact street where we are farming.  We would look at each other and say, "Who gets to live here?"  The vines we are now farming are right across the street from the winery we used to sit at as a suburban tourist couple.  If you had told me then, in 15 years you'll be living up the street and farming the grapes you are looking at now, I WOULD NEVER HAVE BELIEVED YOU.

The Surgery-Gone-Wrong Story

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, I was sick.  I had gone to the surgeon at the one month mark and everything looked great.  But it was not great.  There was a low lying infection going on beneath the surface that suddenly appeared a week ago.  I ended up in hospital and had to go back in for a minor procedure to get rid of the infection.  This now has me daily in a clinic getting the infection drained and dressing changed every single day for the next month to six weeks.  Right at the busy gardening season.  But, thank God for Tommy.  Because he was in our lives, RM and family were able to step up when I was down and out.  Because God knew the future where I would not be well, He put Tommy in place AHEAD of the game, allowing the family to not worry about the vines, or how to pay for Tommy and this allowed the family to take care of me during my rough spell.  Though it was a bit of a scary time, RM was not stressed about the farm.  We look back already and see how God was taking care of things way before we even knew it.

The Church Story

It all happened so fast, me getting sick, that I didn't send out an email telling the world.  I just lay in bed hoping to get better.  But I wasn't getting better, I was getting worse.  One friend wouldn't stop asking the girls what was going on.  The girls kept telling her they had never seen me like this and didn't know what was wrong.  That was enough for her.  She got on the computer and set up a meal train and the next thing I know meals started showing up like I'd never seen before.  I've received meals for 8 babies and have always been grateful, but I've never been sick and received meals.  It was different somehow, somehow more humbling as I really couldn't do anything.  I couldn't think about shopping.  I could barely walk.  My kids had been amazing "moms" for days, but were starting to fade.  "It's hard to be a mom to 8!" they kept saying.  Haha.  When the meals came, we all just sat there, so happy!  We all ate and ate like it was the best food we'd ever had.  The food just tasted so good and there was a gratitude for it that we had never experienced before.  Food from fellow believers has healing power, I'm convinced.  There's just something about it that heals the body and the soul.  That was the true Church coming through and there are still days left.  I am SO GRATEFUL.

The In-Law Story

While all of this was going on we had Mother's Day....for me it was the best ever because I got a two day celebration out of it as the kids wouldn't be around on the actual day as the girls were leading worship together, so we celebrated on the Saturday and the Sunday - score!   Being sick had an added benefit, I actually took the day off.  I really couldn't do much.  On the Sunday, my in-laws came over.  RM took his mom out in the vines and she was just having her best day, loving the view, the outdoors, the chickens, the grandchildren.  Overcome with emotion, she cried, "Can we live here?"  YES!  We've said all along we will take any parent who wants to come.  We could so easily have things set up for anyone to move in.  RM hesistantly said to talk to his Dad as he thought he might be more resistant to the idea, but within 24 hours, we got a clear  - yes.  This is big news.  We are now working around the clock to make this work as fast as possible.  God just seems to have everything on overdrive right now.  We can hardly believe how fast our lives are changing from day to day!

The Worship Story

My two daughters got to lead worship together this past Sunday.  It was so beautiful.  They were so happy.  Having lost our worship pastor was sad, but it has certainly allowed for others to step up and that has given my daughters opportunities that would never have happened otherwise.  So though some mourn, I see how God has used loss to create new life in the church.  Kind of cool.

The Surgeon Story

I can't believe how many stories are being written in our lives right now.  It is fun to wake up each day and wonder, "What will happen today?"   Going in to the hospital this past Monday I prayed, "Lord, give me someone to talk to."  I didn't realize it would be the surgeon himself.  I was awake this time for the procedure.  He started asking me about my farm, where we lived, etc.  Turns out he buys eggs from our neighbour, small world.  I told him to buy vegetables from me as he just lives a few minutes from us.  He wrote all our info down and is probably going to come by this summer!  I also talked with the med student again who my son follows on youtube about getting into med school.  He and were having a great chat about essay writing, Marineland, how to get into med school, all during the whole procedure.  I thanked him for all his help again and how much my son appreciates what he does.  Very funny.

Now, I head in every day to see the nurses in the clinic.  We already have a lovely rapport and I pray we'll have wonderful conversations over the next 4-6 weeks.  I marvel at the care I'm getting and how our health care allows for this.  I marvel at the human body and how it knows what to do.  I marvel at how you never know what a day will bring.  I continue to be full of hope and excitement.  

One thing I can't believe I'm excited about is dirt.  RM dug up the garden again and the soil looked like real soil compared to clay like last summer.  I picked it up like a real farmer and tried to make a "dirt ball" with it.  It was perfect.  I have learned so much that in that one squeeze, I knew our vegetables would grow.  I'm so excited about that!

So, there's my list of stories just for two weeks.  I'm sure the next two weeks will bring even more.

A Day in the Life

I thought my moments were full before.  I thought that my days were planned for me before.  Not like this.  My latest morning routine is a little over the top.  I wake up - early - I go downstairs to our scary gym and force myself to work out.  I then go back upstairs, have a coffee (best part of my day), read, pray (beg God for help daily), catch up on world events, maybe blog, and then get my warmest clothes on and go off to the vines to prune the concord grapes.  I hang out down there with the birds chirping (it is so beautiful, I have to say) for an hour or two, depending on how cold and wet I get, and then come back to wake up the family.  It's not even 8:30 by this point.  Some are awake, but most are asleep.

We then attempt our "regular" day with chores, school, eating, etc.  By noon, I'm wiped, so I may lay down if I get a chance for a few minutes.  Then I hear the plants calling.  My little greenhouse is ALIVE. I was getting a little worried because my plants were getting "leggy".  From what we had read we didn't have enough light even though I had them in a south facing room with lots of light.  It wasn't enough.  I didn't know what we were going to do as lights are quite expensive, but yay to RM for doing some research.  He found some grow lights form a cannibas operation (haha) for a really decent price and they are PERFECT.  They light up the room like it is 12 noon all day and they are warm, too - 1200 watts of light.  Crazy.  The plants are super happy now and after transplanting some of them they are now growing really well.  So that's what I do for the next few minutes - I go through the "greenhouse" assessing which ones need water, which ones have sprouted, which ones need to be transplanted, etc....it's kind of fun to see how much they grow each day.  As I walk by the laundry to the plants, I throw in a load, take out a load, fold a load, call a child to help, and end back up in the kitchen.  I look at the clock and realize - yikes, I better start dinner!

More kids are called and somehow we get dinner on the table - who knows how, but it always end up almost exactly at 5.  If I'm later than 5 kids' stomachs start growling at me.  It means they always want food later, but that's fine, 5 it is.  The evening can be more plant stuff, or imagine this, sitting down for a few minutes.....I've started doing more garden research during this time as I have a lot of questions myself.  Needless to say, my bed is screaming for me by 9.  Last night I was in bed, probably fully asleep by 9:30.

So a full day, every day.  It makes me wonder - What did I do with my time before this garden????

Meanwhile, my son is back at it starting to study full time again for his second round of taking the MCAT.  He was feeling so discouraged about having to take it twice, but it turns out the stat is that most people take it 2 or 3 times!  We're already starting to see a huge change in his attitude and his approach to studying and I think he'll do great.  This past week I had a follow up appointment with the surgeon to see how I was healing up.  I had no questions at all about the surgery, I just wanted the appointment to be over so I could talk to him about med school.  He had a med student with him in the room, too, so once the appointment was over, I asked if I could ask him about the best approach to med school, taking the MCAT twice, which schools to apply to, etc.  The surgeon was happy to talk and then the med student, you could tell, was dying to talk to me, too.  As soon as he started to talk, everything he said sounded awfully familiar.  He had mentioned he had a youtube channel on how to get into med school, how to study, etc.  I asked, "Are you out of Mac?"  "Yes....?"  I said, "I think my son follows you on youtube..."  Sure enough, I called my son just to see if it was the same guy - it was.  I had just met a very famous "youtuber"!  My son LOVES this guy and does everything he says.  He couldn't believe I had met him - hilarious - the world of social media is so weird!  But this young med student had told me to tell my son to reach out to him.  They are now in contact and have a funny little rapport.  He's been very helpful and to my son it was just the encouragement he needed.  Kind of what I wrote before about God speaking to us in our language.  It meant nothing to me as I'm not a social media person, but everything to my son, who is.

The funnier thing is - I now am a social media person.  I'm hardly good at it, but now have the crazy instagram and facebook pages for our farm.  Very funny.  My kids laugh at me as I try to learn to navigate it.  

The reason I go off to the vines each morning is because I want to make the trees and vine balls again.  The funny thing is I thought I would be making them for Christmas, but I'm getting orders for vines balls for garden decorating!  I love this!  I have to prune like a crazy person because the vines are starting to bud, so there is pressure!

Ok, off I go......

Miracles in My Language

So I think we really did sell all the hay this time...someone came in and looked at what was left and purchased the whole deal - I'll be shocked if it multiplies again, but I swear it did this past month.

Another thing that keeps multiplying is my little seedling room.  More than one miracle has gone on there.  First of all that we even have the space - it was supposed to be for my son, but it turns out he has created a whole little aquarium/science world upstairs, so he isn't even wanting it at this point, so I moved my little plants in there.  The way it is laid out, however, was just getting too squishy.  I only had one table and that got filled up right away with flats of veggie seedlings.  Then I found some boards and crates and made more space, but that also got filled up right away.  I knew I was going to need to buy shelving or something to go vertical as I had no more flat space.  That was when I decided to bring in a microgreen shelf with all the lights.  I had taken it apart weeks earlier and had set all the pieces downstairs. I put the  little clips that went with it in a different location knowing I didn't want to forget them or lose them somehow.  When I went to go put them together, the clips were gone - nowhere to be seen.  I searched the whole house turning everything upside down.  This was Satan's way of putting me under a cloud.  I was already feeling overwhelmed.  I was already feeling fearful that I wasn't going to sell anything.  I was always fighting every form of fear.  So I stopped.  I knew what was going on and I just prayed - By faith I said, "Thank you.  Thank you that I can't find the clips."

I told RM what had happened and he said we'd buy more shelving.  We had to anyway.  I stopped worrying about it.  I gave it up.  A couple days went by.  I knew I would be either dreaming about plants or kept up at night about something garden-y and sure enough, on Friday night, I was woken up with an idea. I suddenly remembered we had more unused shelving in the storage room in the barn - two sets of shelves that would be perfect for the seedling room.  We could buy lights for them and they would make more room for all the additional trays.  I woke up the next morning and had one of the boys go get them for me.  I re-organized the whole seedling room once again so that the plants went against the walls and so that I could walk in the middle of them to water them all.  Then, as I was sorting stuff out, I was near the place where I knew I had looked 100 times for the shelving clips, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the container they were in.  It couldn't be - I had looked so many times.  But I walked over anyway and picked it up and there they were.  My husband always tells me the German expression that says the devil hid it with his tail.  That's what happened I'm sure.  Somehow they were made invisible in order to make me upset, but I hadn't succumbed.  That morning that I found them I had been once again been feeling a little worried, not about the clips, I had surrendered them, but it came back to the garden - Was I in over my head?  Finding the clips that morning, having my eyes opened to the new space yet again for the seedling room, realizing I had shelving on site that I didn't have to go buy....these were all mini messages from the Lord for me that day.  On top of it all my phone was resurrected - that it another true miracle.  It looked like it had been shot, but the phone clinic at the mall somehow managed to get it working again and I didn't lose any data.  Anyone else would see things like that and just move on with their day without acknowledging a miracle had happened.  I feel like God speaks to me very specifically - in my language - even in the middle of the night.

I even have help for the garden.  So many people are in lockdown, but you can work on farms with proper guidelines followed.  I will definitely be needing teams of people soon in order to prep the beds and plant the plants.  The kids have friends who are so desperate to get out of their houses that they have agreed to help - I pay in vegetables!  I'm so excited.  I've also surrendered my garden many times now.  When the worry comes, I realize that it's because I grabbed the garden back.  If nothing grows, I have learned so much about transplanting, about each vegetable, what each one needs to germinate...it is so amazing to learn about each plant!  So even if nothing sells, I'm excited about how much I am learning anyway.

Hay miracles, seedling room miracles, shelf miracles, phone miracles.....I don't know why I ever worry when God is so clearly in all that I am doing and when He is so clearly talking to me all the time, in "my language".

The Hay Miracle

I swear our hay is multiplying.  We keep selling it and RM will say, "Well, that clears us out...." and then after the truck leaves or someone else comes by to pick up a different load, he'll go back in the barn and say, "Huh, seems like there's a few more bales in there!"  "How many?" I'll ask.  "Oh, about 200 or so, maybe another load."  Then last night, another load left, 300 bales worth, and he came back in and said, "Hmmm...it seems like there's another load still there."  "How many?"  "Maybe another 300?"  "Uh, isn't that what you said last time?"  He has said this at least 3 or 4 times.  It seems like our barn won't empty.  It really seems like it is multiplying.  AND last year, during the lockdown, we couldn't sell trailer loads of hay - the borders were closed.  This year, by God's grace, we are able to sell it to the US again which is literally a miracle of loaves and fishes proportions!  It's amazing! 

Also, though I did NOT sell out, I did get my first official order for a CSA box - this tells me I'm going to have to do some leg work.  Even so, someone was crazy enough to trust me to grow vegetables for them.  They paid us in advance which is also crazy.  I'm excited to grow vegetables for these people!  I have two more unofficial orders, i.e. they haven't paid, but verbally agreed to pay, so that's good, too.  Our next step is to make flyers that I deliver door to door.  I'm not discouraged.  The boxes will sell.  If God can multiply hay He can multiply orders of boxes and grow the vegetables.

Alpacas, Seeds and Taking on Feelings

My 14 year old is trying to save his money for two things - a new camera and a new trampoline (even though we already have 4).  He can't do the tricks he wants to do on the current trampolines as only one has a net and he needs the net.  I don't love this but I love how this is encouraging him to be creative and resourceful to make some cash as he can't have a job at this age and we don't pay well on the farm. This is also been the most amazing physical release for him as he heads out day after day for a "sesh", as he calls it.  He hasn't lifted a single weight in his life and I cannot believe the muscles on him - that is the main side benefit to his trampline hobby.... So we've told him to sell anything he can think of that is lying around and he's already made quite a bit of money doing that.  He also sold his silkie chickens that were born on the farm last summer.  That made him super happy.  And we told him to pray.  God hears the prayers of 14 year olds!

Yesterday has to be the funniest answer to prayer yet.  My oldest son has gotten to know one of his professors at school as he takes most of her classes and he has also delivered hay to her alpaca farm.  What a small funny world we live in.  She really seems to like my son because he's super keen in her class and gets high marks.  So out of the blue last week she asked him if he would like to earn some extra cash by helping out on her farm on alpaca shearing day!  Sure!  And she wanted him to bring a brother if possible.  My next oldest son couldn't go so he took the 14 year old.  I love how she didn't even question his age or abilities - a brother of my oldest?  He must have a similar work ethic and, it turns out, he did.

They came home after a whole day of alpaca shearing, 14 of them, and had had a great time.  And, unlike us, she paid really well!  So both of them made some good cash.  They were complimented for how hard they worked and how quickly they caught on.  I was so happy.  I just love how God answers our prayers and in ways that we could never have imagined and, as I always like to say to the kids, "in kid form".  

What I didn't know was that the alpaca professor is married to another biology professor and my son also took his classes.  This professor was the one my son had a small creation/evolution conversation with a couple of years ago where he actually took the time to challenge him at the end of the semester about an evolutionary slide he used in one of his classes that has been proven false years ago.  That same professor also saw that my son was reading a book at the time on creation and how it debunks evolution.  Of all the places to be yesterday he was in the barn of that same professor and his wife.  My prayer is that they were great witnesses yesterday to that couple.  Only God could coordinate that strange arrangement.

My seeds did come yesterday.  I don't know what a panic attack feels like, but when I saw them, at first I was elated, but then I felt terror.  I've been reading so much on fear and taking possession of the land that I half-expected the fear to come and it did.  I spent a lot of the night reading about each vegetable, what it requires, which ones need to be transplanted at what date, which ones are direct seed....whatever happened to just putting seeds in the garden on the May long weekend?!  I had to take a lot of deep breaths.  Then, I posted about the garden on social media and took more deep breaths....

The whole time I was doing all the reading on vegetables, my husband was doing lab/wine testing in the kitchen as the wine has to pass all sorts of tests before it can be sold.  We have a lot going on!  

My husband and I recognize that we are in over our heads, but in a good way.  We recognize that one of our patterns, in both of us, that I believe God is trying to take out of us, is the pattern of being run by our feelings.  Instead of feeling fear, I need to say what I heard in the homeschool conference session I was listening to today, "Christ dwells in me - ALL His joy, ALL His peace, ALL His power."  The difference is that I don't have to let feelings run me, including the feeling of fear.  If I were to boil it down to what I fear - it's a seed?  I'm afraid of a few seeds?  Not growing?  Or I'm afraid of a bug?  or rain? or sun?  These are all things I can handle.  

We had a good talk about it as we read Deuteronomy 3 yesterday.  This is the third or 4th time I've read it in the last few weeks and rereading it last night with the family was another good reminder - as the Israelites "turned" in a new direction, the king of Sihon came out against them - all his army - but right away God said, "Do not fear....."  So, as I turn in this new direction of the garden and my enemy of the seeds, the weather, the soil, the pestilence, comes out against me, I'm not going to fear.  God gave them into the hands of the Israelites and He will help me in my battle, too.