rain II: a Miracles and Mendel Hybrid

So, the last post featured pictures of my baked-to-a-crisp black-eyed peas. Prior to getting baked, they had some pods which escaped the gardener's picking hands. These pods went to seed under the circumstances. After about a month of 100+ degree temps in direct sunlight for 8hrs a day, the gardener took these seeds, pushed them about an inch into the soil and gave them a good soaking. Then, the Big Gardener in the sky did His work and added 5 more inches of rain and a touch of one of life's miracles (Mark 4:27). The result is a story of complete transformation. From life to death, and from death to resurrection into a new life.

2nd Gen black eyed pea sprouts.

2 week old 2nd Gen black eyed peas.

It wouldn't be right if I didn't give at least some credit Gregor Mendel for this little experiment. I am taking a genetics course this semester. Get out your Punnett Squares!

While these legumes may not produce much this fall season, they still can serve a purpose:

Legumes make excellent cover crop because:

• They germinate easily
• Require no application of fertilizer
• They form a complimentary relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria which, to make a long story short, take nitrogen from the air and make it into fertilizer that benefit the plants, which in turn let the bacteria benefit from the nutrient supply along their intricate subterranean highway system.
• They make exquisite shade for tiny fall spinach seedlings, giving them a chance to get going during these Texas fall days that can go from 45 at night to 90 during the day.

rain

or, the lack of it.

It seems like an odd thing to complain about. Born and raised in Texas, it seems to me that rain is always something to complain about. Most of the time it's because we have not had enough, but every once in a while we have a couple of houses float away. It makes for good news, good conversation with strangers and acquaintances. As of this post, we are in a drought that has people comparing the weather to that of 50 years ago. The water line out at my in-law's lake house is a good 400 yard walk down into what used to be 30 feet deep in Medina Lake. Walking around out there in the scrappy, dusty lake bottom - it feels like something has ended. Dried up fish bones half-buried in the dry mud. Deer and other animal tracks lead to the ever receding water-line. Trees, boats, and other flotsam drowned from floods in the past are now exposed, tangled in fishing-line and boat anchors. Farmers cautiously sip the remaining water for irrigation. Fishermen gawk at how blue the water is. Boat owners tear their propellers off on boulders that haven't touched the air since the dam went up in 1913.

The first chapter in Arthur C. Clarke's masterpiece is titled: "The Road to Extinction", and begins like this: "The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended." That should get you thinking. Things are slowly changing all the time. Yesterday the Sahara was a vast rainforest, and much of Texas was a shallow sea. The rain will come back, and it will go away again. As for now though, if you live in Texas and want to see rain you need to go on vacation to see it.

Rain, the miracle/phenomenon that it is, happens only on our planet in this solar system (in H2O form that is). Water is the solution in which life's chemical reactions proceed. Let us be reminded that we are a dirty little water droplet floating in an otherwise desiccated universe. A small speck where you can find vast oceans, great forests, big cities, frozen peaks, whales, birds, bugs, and people who like to talk about the weather.

I, Coconut

I was comfortable there, where I listened to the sea breeze high up in the palm trees. I would watch the surf come in. I would contemplate the mother turtles who came in from the ocean to lay their eggs in the sand. I studied the gulls as they would dive down into schools of fish.

I weathered many storms there and grew round and fat. Happily I hung in the sun, all the the flowers of paradise blooming below as the bees buzzed about, tending them without rest. I knew all the birds, each with different colors and calls. Never once did I consider my purpose, I thought life would always be this way.

Then one particularly breezy morning I was suddenly released from my perch without warning. And now all I know is falling for what seems like forever. Down, down, down.

I strike the trunk from another palm, and am sent rolling across the sand. It is very coarse despite what it looks like from above. I stop near the water line and consider my current situation as the sun gets nearer and nearer to the horizon. Every new wave seems to be coming further up the beach until a large one laps up around me, lifting me out of the sand. I am then pulled out into the gently rolling surf, adjusting to this new cold and salty environment. I dance and bob in the invisible current, and it takes me further and further from where I began. Further from everything I ever knew.

My island now out of sight, I begin to doubt that I will ever go back. Thinking about this I float across on an open ocean, rising and falling with each passing wave. Content with the cool ocean, with the deep darkness beneath, happily gazing up at the stars in the deep darkness above.

Days pass, weeks pass, months pass. Nothing. Just me, the sky, the sea, and nothing but time. Land will surely come some day, and I will become a beautiful palm. I will drop my own seeds in the ocean to be planted on other distant lands. I bob up and down, completely happy.

But everyday it does not come. Land begins to become a hope rather than what would seem an inevitability. Maybe there is no land where I am going. Soon I stop looking to the horizon, knowing that it does no good.

I wait for an unimaginable time, and am bored for I have memorized the stars, and can count the minutes from sunrise to sunset as they increase and decrease through the seasons. I can map the moon to every detail. I can name all the fishes of the ocean, I can tell you what the whales have been saying to one another. I have counted the days.

I have not seen land for seven years and five months.

Still I cling to life, though it is of no worth. Still I withhold myself from the very God who has created me. In all this nothingness I remain hard and to myself. My husk still tightly wound around my rich center.

Then the clouds came, but not like before.

The waves rose up and became mountains before me. Pulling me into themselves before throwing me out into the wind. I would then hover over immense valleys before splashing back down deep into the blue depths. I float up to the surface slowly, all the while witnessing the silent flashing spectacle above. Gasping for air I resurface again only to be pulled by another mountain. This happens time and again. I am thrown into the flashing sky, the rain pelting my husk. My inner sea having it's own storms.

I finally surrender.

Complete abandonment of self. A coconut in a typhoon, completely given up to you, drifting along the currents of the ocean of your will.

a celestial conversation between angels adverse

an excerpt from Mr. John Milton's Paradise Lost:

Book IV 1006-1015

Gabriel to Satan (after catching him trying to sneak into The Garden):

"Satan, I know thy strength, and thou know'st mine,

neither our own but giv'n; what folly then

to boast what arms can do, since thine no more

than Heav'n permits, nor mine, though doubled now

to trample thee as mire: for proof look up,

and read thy lot in yon celestial sign

where thou art weighed, and shown how light, how weak,

if thou resist. The Fiend looked up and knew

his mounted scale aloft: no more; but fled

murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night."

Winter, and All We Need

Here's a little mid-winter update on what has (mostly hasn't) been happening in the garden, what I want to plant for the Spring, and a simple fact of life itself...

I pulled up the cauliflower not because I harvested and ate it all, but because it began to flower and stank my fridge up. A couple of pounds of cauliflower in a big gallon Ziploc went pretty much entirely to waste, and the rest never even made it out of the garden. I will have to remember to grow desirable vegetables from now on. Not all was completely wasted as the plants and un-eaten heads found their way to the bottom of the leaf bin - which brings me to the next topic.

The compost I have been preparing since July is looking really nice, and I stopped adding new things to it (diverting new compost into the leaf bin) on the 1st of the year to allow it to be more thoroughly composted for this spring's garden. I look forward to adding the compost to my gardens here in a few weeks before I plant. I will be sure to post some pictures of that.

As far as what I will be growing... I know I want to grow a lot of corn, squash, peas, and cucumbers this spring, and I think I might plant a few tomatoes, but not as much as I did this past fall. I also want to plant okra because it's easy and it's the only thing that will keep growing after the summer heat sets. I am going to try something called "Three Sisters" which is a method of companion-planting successfully used by the Native Americans. I will post a detailed narrative of the experiment.

Abbey and I went to Ganado to visit her grandparents during the holidays and I saw how her Pa Pa was growing an entire patch of garlic (I planted mine mid-September and nothing had sprouted at that point). He said that every single clove sprouted as I looked down the rows and rows of it. Apparently all I needed to do was water it really good once a week - plants like water - go figure. The cloves I planted in September finally came up around Christmas after laying dormant for three months in the dirt! After all the fertilizer and mulch and waiting, all it wanted was some water. Good thing garlic likes the cool weather, as mine is having quite a delayed growing season. All it needed was water to sprout...

The chemical reactions and miracle for life lay waiting, only needing some H2O.

I guess all we need sometimes is all we need. truly truly...

Warm Sunny Days in Moderation, Please

This past week I burned my fledgling plants by accident with an organic fertilizer that I did not dilute properly. Seedlings that were already struggling to survive daily through the drought and heat were now subject to the near-toxic solution in my sprayer. It did not take long to realize what I had done, but it was too late to prevent any further damage. Healthy green leaves turned a crispy brown color before falling off. Entire seedlings fell over and have since turned into tiny shriveled-up twigs. Some leaves turned black around the edges, clearly signifying my caustic mistake. All was not well in the garden.

In an attempt to enrich and vitalize my plants in this time of stress I instead made life that much more difficult for them. Too much of a good thing had become deadly. 

You can take anything that was meant for good: fertilizer, TV, rain, wine; and in excess it is a poison, it is a flood, it is an addiction.

The balance of moderation is the story of life. The warm sunny days are only good because of the cold rainy ones, and vice versa. Thus everyday is good.

Life goes on, and often times is stronger due to hardship. If a plant is not killed by the drought, it will survive afterward having deeper roots. If it's first three leaves are not completely scorched away because of the bumbling gardener, then it will send up three new ones (praise the Lord).

Volunteer Plants

In my garden there is a tomato plant that is different from the rest. He sprouted out of my compost from an old store-bought tomato I threw away. He is what gardeners call a "volunteer plant". This happens a lot actually, and I usually just pull them up and toss them back down into the compost. This little guy was different though, he already had his true leaves by the time I found him. He already resembled a growing tomato plant. So in an act of mercy I put him in my garden, gave him a spot along the soaker hose, and even gave him his own official tomato-cage just like the others. Everything a growing tomato plant could ever want.

He was doing great, totally exceeding my expectations. He even sent out little yellow flowers that would someday soon become juicy tomatoes... that is until last thursday, when the daytime temp jumped above 90 for a few hours for the first time. Heat like this can cause tomatoes to drop their flowers.

For now, he is still there growing taller than all the others... producing nothing but leaves.

He reminds me of myself sometimes. The way I have been saved by grace, how I have been thoroughly provided for, and how I have been included in something much bigger than myself. Yet despite all this, I can sometimes still fail to produce anything God would consider as "fruit" in my life... I can send out flowers in faith, only to drop them when things get hot...

So, I have decided to keep him rather than bury him in the compost. Who knows, it might still stay in the 80's long enough for him to set fruit. I am thankful and am alive now only because God has had a similar patience with me. 

Fruits of the Spirit / Vine-ripened Tomato

It seems like every other parable in the bible has something to do with a garden and a gardener. This blog is about me searching for those parables in my own life, both inside and outside the garden in my backyard. It's no Eden, but every time I look out my back window I see something special, every new flower or new sprout is a victory and a miracle. Every tomato that turns red is a testament to patience and love.

It makes me wonder what God thinks as he searches the hearts of us all... what does he think of men, and the fruit that we produce? 

If our victory is in Christ, and the miracle is his ascension, we are expected to sprout like seeds in a well-tended garden. If the Holy Spirit is truly working in us then our purpose is to bear fruit in the form of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control"(Galatians 5:19-23). Is it possible that some of these "fruits" are also the attributes of a delicious vine-ripened tomato? Hmmm...