Family Harvest after “watering, fertilizing and weeding”

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Today’s Blog Post


Family Harvest after “watering, fertilizing and weeding”

As we are getting ready for Winter now, there have been a hundred little jobs outside to prepare our house and yard for winter. The discoveries as we have done the work have been most fascinating.

We have had large pots planted all summer with decorative vines and flowers. They were amazing as they filled the pot with their glory.

One of the plants in the pots was a sweet potato vine with long trailing vines hanging from the pots. Their colour and the fact that they are so full and fine with their leaves has made the pots the fullest looking ever.

Preparation of the flower pots for the winter in our case is to remove the vegetation from the pots and loosen the dirt somewhat by pulling out the old top vegetation and the roots attached.

As Alida was doing the first pot I heard her give a little yelp. “Take a look at this! You won’t believe it!”

When I turned around to look there she held a gigantic six inch long and 3 inch wide sweet potato. Can you imagine? That little pot and vine produced a huge potato!

But that wasn’t the only one. The first pot produced four more sweet potatoes – all in varying sizes. That one pot had a sweet harvest to say the least!

But each pot that we have dug into has had many sweet potatoes. And we are not done yet. It will be fun to see how many pounds of potatoes we will actually get.

Now they don’t look particularly edible being as white as they are. But we will see.

Thinking back on it now, the pots did require a huge amount of watering this year. As the season went on they seem to need more and more water. If we didn’t water the pots they dropped quickly with the leaves hanging down sadly.

From the production of the ground fruit of these sweet potatoes we can see why. They were on a role and the conditions for growth were just right. This year we would have a bumper crop.

I have thought about this production a lot over this weekend. From our simple attempts to beautify our yard with these pots, the large amount of work that my wife in particular put into the pots and the added amount that I put into the yard – we have had a bountiful harvest. Something has come out of all the hard work!

Isn’t that just like a family?

First we bring into this life a new baby… then babies. It was so much fun the first time that we decided on a second and maybe even more.

There were lots of restless nights and some strain at first. But our love for what we were doing with this new baby made it worth it all.

Then the baby grew and grew. All the babies got bigger and then school… and the celebration of what they did each week.

Unfortunately the time was whizzing by. Some of the tedious work of each day and toil of “watering, fertilizing and weeding” of our family garden gets more than a little tedious and back breaking. In fact if we are honest there is no relief at all. The need of the child is whole lot like the flower pots in our yard. You no sooner tend to the pot (or child) and there is another greater need for “watering, fertilizing and weeding”.

When we first planted the pots it didn’t seem like that much to do. Growth was slow and steady. This would be easy.

When we first had our number one baby, it was easy. Then the second one came along… that was easy as well.

Fast forward our life and the babies became young ladies. Fast forward further they became moms and we have watched the same process all over again… from seedlings to beautiful vines that are a joy to watch.

That is especially true now for Alida and me. We have watched our daughters Dana and Anda develop into wonderful moms and great partners to their husbands.

Now we are watching the grandkids sprout up and grow so fast. We see the tremendous amount of work that it takes to raise our six grandkids. We watch the times that they are so busy with the “watering, fertilizing and weeding” and see how trying it can be for the two families.

And my illustration may fall to pieces here shortly… but from our family I see a huge crop coming from all the effort.

This morning Alida and I will attend the awards ceremony at the Adam Scott High School. Our Grandson Clifford told us that it was happening today, and from what he said it seems to be a good idea for us to attend. This could be a “sweet potato” morning – when one of our own little vines is going to show Grandpa and Grandma what has happened in his life.

Over this past week we have sat through about 10 hours of football games. On Tuesday the game was in Fenlon Falls where Clifford’s team won a huge victory over the top team this year in our region. Yes they won… in the very last seconds of the game. I nearly burst my buttons at that game.

But then we held our breath on Friday when Clifford’s team met with the Crestwood High School football team. Crestwood has won this game and become the top in the area for 15 years straight!

On Friday Clifford’s team beat Crestwood. My buttons did pop off with this one.

Then on Saturday from 10 AM until 3 PM we sat and watched “our kids” play more football at the Kinsmen Minor Football League final. Our Granddaughter Emma is part of that team effort. And more buttons came loose… her team played hard, didn’t win.. and Grandpa’s buttons came off anyway!

Not long ago we watched the smooth hockey plays and fast skating of our daughter Anda’s four boys. They are good at hockey – very good! They are also good at Baseball and love their involvement. To do all that they do the family has to act like a Team to just get it all done.

I will soon have to get zip up shirts as my buttons are flying off at every game we attend.

But the families are still at the growing stages. “Watering, fertilizing and weeding” is still a major part of the process.

But the harvest is coming someday soon. The amount of “watering, fertilizing and weeding” will produce a huge crop from these kids.

The only big regret is that I may not see all that will come from the harvest in these lives. This Grandpa does wish that he could live until he was at least 100 hundred so I could see the great harvest that will come.

Gotta run… this is the Awards day and Grandpa can’t miss it!

~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/