Syrup

Even when nothing is growing in the garden, there are still opportunities to take advantage of its productive opportunities. We've been tapping our maple trees, and those of two or three of our neighbors since Reuben was a very small boy. It's now become one of his very favorite activities of the whole year, and he takes the work very seriously.

Tapping the trees - we use old milk jugs to catch the sap.

Matt's been using a three-pan system for the last two years. This makes the whole process go a lot faster, and he's been able to get a lighter syrup for the finished product, too.

Just to the left of center you can see a big cylinder of ice he pulled out of his holding bucket, using the Native American trick of just freezing off the water and getting a head start on concentrating the sap to get to the proper sugar content.

The whole rig in all its glory. Those cinder blocks are slowly crumbling - every year it's a little more "riggish" and one of these years he's going to have to purchase some new ones! (These are all still left over from the demolition during remodeling at our church years ago.)

Reuben's beloved job is to feed the fire.

 And the finished product from the first boil: nearly two gallons of beautiful, pure, home grown and home made maple syrup!

An off year

 Walking around the yard this year is a little bit challenging, and a real reminder of how much time we're needing to invest on the human side of the Motley Garden this year! The plant side is really taking a hit.

But this single plant, coming around the corner from the garage to the vegetable garden, is a bright smile - this is a cosmos that seeded itself from the annuals that Sam gave us last year. What a fun little bright gift.

 Because this is what we mostly grew in the vegetable garden this year. Weeds, weeds, and more weeds. Weeds of all kinds, and many taller than I am. And all going to seed. Underneath those weeds are some poor pathetic pumpkin and squash plants that the girls and I quickly stuck in the ground this spring, but I doubt the poor light-starved plants have produced anything. There are also potatoes hiding in there, too, sprouted from the ones that we didn't find last fall. It will be interesting to see if they amount to anything if we (hopefully!) can get out there to dig them up.

 But, ah, tomatoes. It's hard to go wrong with tomatoes. They, too, are feeling the effects of neglect - no water when it's hot, no weekly tying up and pruning, no regular picking, but still - look at those beauties that grace our table!!

And there was one plant that did survive, and is finally flourishing: the pie pumpkins! We have at least a dozen 8" pumpkins trying to turn orange before the growing season is over.

 And then there's THIS ... thing. It came up by itself. It's growing the most incredible, large (14-18") warty pumpkins! Won't these be fun to put on the steps in a few weeks?? There's one beautiful orange one, and two or three more giving it their best effort.

 And, up in the front, the eggplants are thriving. We're giving them away to friends (and strangers! That was a fun story. Matt was at the kitchen window and saw a woman walking on the path stop to look at our plants. He ran out and told her to help herself! So she came back the next day and did...and came back a few hours later with a two-serving helping of what she had made complete with recipe. It was good. We made it again! Still don't know where she lives or what her name is! We'd love to plant more edibles by the path garden next summer with a sign saying, "Enjoy!") and we're trying to eat some of them ourselves.

Tasty for lunch

Since this is apparently the summer that I don't have much time to really BE in the garden, but just to occasionally enjoy it in passing, here is yet another tidbit of a post on what I found out there the other day.

Yum. Fresh cucumbers, and DILL! which is a first for me. I've had two people mention that although it is an annual, it tends to reseed itself, which I'm hoping proves to be the case. Regardless, for lunch today with a touch of vinegar, we had some delicious fresh pickles!

A surprise

For some reason I thought lupines needed two seasons to bloom. Apparently this one didn't get the message:

What a fun surprise to find in "Great-Grandpa's Garden"!

Daylilies

The white lilies in full bloom

Aren't these incredible? They're huge, pristinely white, and last for such a long time.

Weeds

Gardening is great for analogies, and as a mother of nine children, every time I'm out weeding my gardens, I can't help but think of the work that I do every day as a mother.

Sometimes the weeds I pull up are just little things that I grab as I'm walking by. These are kind of putsy to pick at, but they come up easily - the whole root and everything in one little tug. Some of parenting is like that. "Oh, no, Evania, scissors are for PAPER, not hair." Once, done. I don't expect I'll have to repeat that one again for her.

But sometimes it's a much bigger job, and MAN is it crazy how quickly some of those things can grown! And once that root is down in there, you can pull all you want, but unless you go after it with a shovel, you don't stand a chance - it will be back just as strong next year (or later this same summer!) And even if you DO go after the big ones with a shovel, the odds of you getting the entire root are not very good. It will be back. And you've got to keep watching, and when you see it sticking its ugly head back out of the ground, you've got to go back after it again and again and again until it finally dies.

Burdock is one of my top five hated weeds, right up there with creeping charlie, thistle, and the beautiful purple wild flower that takes over and chokes out other plants and refuses to die. And that leaves one more slot in the top five open...I guess I'm undecided what should be in that spot! There are a number of contenders depending on the season...

And some just never seem to die.

Just as I have a tendency to fall back into the same patterns of sin again and again, I see it ever so clearly in my children. The weeds that don't get pulled out right away have roots so deep that no shovel of mine is ever going to pull it out. Oh, on those nights, how I pray for the Roundup of the power of God to pour down on those weeds and watch them wither away, because some of the "weeds" growing in those little hearts have roots that are no match for even the most skilled human gardener!

What I've found is the best thing to do at that point is just to simply keep at it. Pulling *part* of the plant weakens the plant, which slowly, ever so slowly, weakens the root. Pulling up the immature plants prevents the disaster of a weed going to seed. That burdock up above might come back (though I think I got enough of that one we might be okay for at least a few years!), but it's not coming back as anything other than itself! No baby burdock surrounding it this time!

But in the meantime, the work of the weeds also has the potential to be a great connector of me and my children. Especially among the younger set, and often even Leah, too, I have eager helpers, and pretty dependable, too, I must say.

Rinnah and Evania are here helping me pull out an edible weed from the vegetable garden. It's a win-win - they have something to bring to the front yard for their game, and I lose the weeds! Reuben has learned to distinguish this yellow-flowered clover, and will very deliberately pull up just those. It's great for me - he makes slow, but real progress, and it keeps him  happily engaged near me in an activity that it outside!

These precious summer days spent outside together are irreplaceable.