A Tiring Week

It was a long, hard week, so I decided to post a picture from a lighthearted day earlier this summer. Laughing Water and I are dancing outside of a cave we were about to go spelunking in.

It was just one of those weeks where homeschooling, music practice, business stress, and details of our mission project seemed to overwhelm me.

But today was a blessing. I got to sleep in (even if the kids' fighting did wake me up). Then, my mother offered to take my kids out to her mountain cabin where she was doing some garden work. That left me with some free time to get my chores done. I purchased a few groceries, cleaned my van and then came home.

One project that has been bugging me has been my garlic. I plant it in the fall and should have had it in the ground weeks ago. Indeed, if this had been a normal fall here in the North country, it would have been too late. I was in such a funk that gardening didn't even seem to appeal to me (a rare thing, indeed!). But it was a pleasant day and The Wood Artist had tilled part of my garden yesterday. I set myself a time limit and promised myself that if I got just 1/2 of the garlic planted, I would be happy. I put on my iPod and let the words of the music soak into my struggling spirit. In less than the alotted time, I had planted all of my garlic! This was a great blessing as a year ago my mother gave me a few high quality bulbs of different national origins. They did well this year, but I needed all I had to re-seed. If I hadn't got them planted, I would not have been able to preserve those kinds.

I'm trying something new. Since garlic is supposed to help with garden pests, I planted them in two different beds about eight or nine feet apart. The idea is that I will plant my cabbage patch between the two rows, in hopes that the garlic will help with the pests. After planting, I covered the rows thickly with straw. Here are some of pictures of the operation.