Manic Monday: Harvest

1. We had a pretty good sized garden when I was growing up. I don't have one right now, but I still love fresh produce from the garden. Of course, when the summer came to an end, we had to be sure to get everything we wanted picked and inside before the frost. I remember one year we had tomatoes lined up on newspapers downstairs in our basement. Maybe it was an early frost, maybe it was a shorter growing season, but there they were, ripening and waiting to be made into salsa. My mom even bought tiny salt shakers so that we could eat tomatoes ... we snacked on them with or without salt. Yum!

2. I grew up in an agricultural area, so there were lots of farms around. The only farming experience I have is one year our friend (a farmer) opened up the fields so we could "glean" them, or pick up all the potatoes that had been left behind. I remember it took a long time and I didn't even do much work. Thanks mom and dad for all the yummy potatoes and your hard work!

3. The Law of the Harvest: You Reap What You Sow. If you plant an apple seed, you won't be harvesting peaches.
I look at my job as a mother, and the seed that I plant for my children. Even when we don't think that our kids are watching and even when we don't think we are making a difference, they are watching and they are learning.
This is sometimes easier to observe in someone else's kids, rather than your own. You see the mannerisms that they pick up from their parents, the way that they speak, they way that they walk and talk. Of course our children have their own spirits, their own personalities, their own independence, defiance, and ideas, but as parents, we have a few years to help them develop into the best people they can be.
That job, as a cultivator and nurturer, giving my children the proper seeds planted in their minds and a lot of hard work to get them to grow properly, until they start to decide which ones to cultivate on their own, is something I try to keep a top priority. And hopefully, I don't trim the wrong branches or allow the wrong one to keep growning. I hope I can give them support when they need it and not too much support when they don't, so that they can grow tall and strong.
It's hard work and I love it.

Alright so...country isn't usually my top choice of music, but I love this song and it fits perfectly!



And be sure to check out more thoughts on the harvest at Mo's Manic Monday blog!