There are so many Paulo Coelho quotes to love. This one, from The Alchemist is one of my favourites:
“And, when you want something,
all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
Last summer, we started an experiment in our gardens. We planted extra of everything to give to FareShare in Cobourg. With that year under our belts, we were wondering how we could improve upon what we were doing and maybe become more efficient and be able to give more this year.
This is the spot in my story where "the universe" comes in.
This winter, I had some new art students at my weekly classes. One of them, Jane, let it slip that her husband grows food for the Yonge Street Mission in Toronto. Whaaaatttt? Over the course of the winter, I learned more about their gardens. I got to taste their home-ground Painted Mountain cornmeal and turtle beans. Both are amazing! We just had to see their gardens.
Today was the day! Garlic to the ends of the earth. Turns out if you compost wood chips, it kills all of the weed seeds.
Jane is a "one plant in one pot" kind of gal.
Whereas her husband..... not so much.
We were impressed with the size of the gardens, but also impressed with little things that make life easier there. Like this stick. You lay it over your newly planted carrot seeds. Put some stones on to keep it in place and check every so often for germination. The stick keeps the moisture in, and is easy to hoe next to. It's always a little tricky weeding next to carrots.
Ted was in his glory checking out garden tools.
And, I felt like the queen having our coffee and rhubarb dessert amidst the garden plants.
Back at the ranch, our Victoria Day activities turned to cleaning up a pile of cedar branches.
Ted said that he'd seen a star-nosed mole sniffing around the pond earlier in the evening. Some seed-heads called out to be photographed on the way to find the mole. How wonderfully regular this dandelion is. It looks like an IKEA light fixture to me.
And, the colts foots were looking particularly fluffy.
Ted had seen the mole near the pond. We are up to 6 frogs in the ponds. More than last year with some gigantic tadpoles swimming about too. This one was too busy making cool reflections to let me know where the mole was.
You need to use all of your senses when looking for moles. Just listen and you'll hear them tumbling around in the dry leaves. Check out its toes!
I love this kind of holiday: some inspiration and some time for work and some time for reflection.
And, Jack is still in his pulpit. Life is good.
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Theodore Roosevelt
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