Such a lovely take on the un-flowering of the front yard! It also brings to mind Deb Rienstra's delightful poem, the exact name of which I can't remember, but it's something like "revenge of the daffodils (or tulips)" =)
Jeff, I love the beautiful and unique and somehow hope-filled way you see the world. I'll confess there are too many "Notes of a Make-Believe Farmer" stacked in my over-filled, it-must-be-May, I've-been-treading-water-and-mostly-drowning inbox right now. I'm so glad I chose to read this one. Thanks for sharing these thoughts and both the permission to know our limitations and ask for help AND to rescue or step in to help where we see beauty and need. Great thoughts for this hard world. Thank you.
No desire for cooking (that's actually knowing my limitations there) and barely any time for beautiful eating, but my office is overflowing with houseplants that are somehow flourishing even after 2 1/2 months of just plain hard heartbreak. And I'm writing poetry again this year. So that's cultivating my heart.
I hope our paths cross in person again sometime soon!
Your research project is catching my attention. During Lent, I found many references to the table and food, sharing and feeding. I will look forward to reading your thoughts.
Your words about the garden and transplanting are very comforting to me today. My mother passed away last Friday. It was not unexpected and it was peaceful and I was there. I know many don’t receive those mercies and I see them. Her memorial service is this coming Monday and I am delivering her eulogy. I have never done it before, I’m terrified of speaking in public and I know there is a good chance that my normally stoic demeanor will dissolve on that day. But I want to honor her appropriately and due to several factors, there’s no one else available that I trust to do that. She was a lover of all things green. Plants that looked dead would revive almost immediately for her. She loved to “piddle” with plants and after becoming too weak to do it herself, she continued to direct the rest of us. Thank you for these words and perspective today. They give me another way to think about my mother’s influence. Pray for me on Monday at 11. ❤️
I hope Sally has found something that brings her joy in her new apt.
Congrats, good vibes, and prayers for the PhD journey! May it include lots of delicious meals to accompany the research.
We are moving back across the ocean in 25 days and while we are excited and sad - the act of moving is 🤪🫤😭 When we made the decision to move the first thing I did was find new homes for my plants (can’t bring anything in) so I’m eager to build my new garden beds and get to planting.
Thank you for sharing this. I’m a longtime reader, first time commenter.
A few years back, my mother, who I had a difficult relationship with growing up, moved in with us to help with our children, both of whom had just been diagnosed with a degenerative neuromuscular disorder. Shortly after she moved in with us, we all moved into the house my husband grew up in. Very sadly, his mother had already passed, and his father was not feeling up to keeping up an entire house. So we moved in and became to make that home, our home. Part of this included giving some love to the yard and garden that his mother had cared so well for but that his father was not able to keep up with. Many of her plant babies still remain today. And each year, as I fertilize them and trim them, talk to them and talk badly about the weeds around them, I do it in her honor. I say “your mom’s roses are about to bloom” or “let your sister know that your mom’s peonies are beautiful this year.”
My mom moved out last year and into her own apartment. Over the years that she lived with us, we rebuilt parts of our relationship that was damaged. Other parts feel too far gone. But she, too, is a skilled gardener, and in the years she lived with us, she taught me the names of her favorite plants and when and how best to care for them. We found a columbines flower once, growing up in between the cracks on the edge of the patio and marveled at its tenacity. We found metaphors there, too, of course. This year, two columbines popped up at the base of the lilac bush that my mother in law planted years ago. Aged, cared for, well-loved lilacs with new, surprise baby columbines showing up in the lofty lilac branch shade. Life going on and as much as the world spinning madly on (nod to The Weepies), wrecks me. I’m trying to let it crack me open in a good way too.
So thank you for sharing this. It’s helped me this morning, sitting out on my porch, sort through some of my own thoughts.
Much love, peace, and prayers being sent your way.
Jeff, I really value and appreciate your thoughts about the "rescue" of the garden and your affirmation of the young couple's idea to share the plants and also their acceptance of limitation of ability and interest to maintain what Sally created. What a generous idea to invite people to come with shovels and take what they wanted. I'm so grateful to be on you email list. Enjoy 21st grade.
Congratulations on your Ph.D opportunity, Jeff! Sounds fascinating - definitely prayers coming your way. When I think of Sally's years of nuturing and creating, I look over at my Christmas cactus that I've cared for since my first grade teacher gave us all small plantings at the end of the school year. She's an old girl now (I'm 62) but bloomed from December to May this year and is thriving after our move to Oregon two years ago. I've pruned her back (again) so she can rest. I'm wondering about Sally? Does she know that her plants are now everywhere in the neighborhood? I hope she is well. Thank you!
Jeff- I enjoyed this newsletter so thoroughly! I could almost see and smell the flowers of which you wrote. What could have been a sad story turned into spreading not only flowers but joy to all your neighbors!
Thank you, will pray for you and happy that you continue to write for us even with your jammed pack schedule
So beautiful and true about these plants blessing others in a diaspora of Sally's hard work, and how admitting our limitations can be the best option, even if it's bittersweet.
I've had some minor but annoying and limiting health issues this week, but the community and visibility and joy that pops up this time of year for Pride, like big colorful blooms, has given me energy.
So glad that you came to an understanding that what the new homeowners were doing was actually an act of Grace and knowing that they were not the ones to keep that garden what it was. I'd be in a very similar spot, because despite how much I like greenery, I very much have a black thumb. Thank you for sharing this story, it sounds like a beautiful experience!
Congrats on your acceptance to the University of Stellenbosch. I used to live near there and always loved my little day trips or weekends in Stellenbosch… plus great wine if that’s your thing! I do hope you get to spend some time physically present there, it’s beautiful.
It’s funny how something precious to us might be a pain for others. Beauty to Sally was a burden to the new owners, but even they knew the beauty was worth salvaging.
The weather here in Australia has shifted to our mild winter with a heavy dose of wind to go with, and I’ve watched my overgrown chilli plants bow in submission and awe to the weather - somehow, those scotch bonnets hang on tight. I’m hoping they hold long enough for them to dry on the plant so I can harvest and take them to my sister in law, who has a newborn and cannot tend to a garden right now as she’s tending a new life.
There’s grief in that for me. I long to hold a baby and grow that life, but for now I rejoice in the pumpkin vine that burst from the compost - a staunch reminder that life comes from death, and that life might just be abundant and take over a whole section of yard. I rejoice in the chilli that stands tall. I rejoice in the half painted fence and in the chickens that kick dirt at it constantly.
There’s beauty and there’s grief and it’s all okay.
Sally's gardening legacy lives on through many other gardens, not just her own, I believe she would be happy with the benefit and blessing her hard work will make in the lives of others and others to come.
Such a lovely take on the un-flowering of the front yard! It also brings to mind Deb Rienstra's delightful poem, the exact name of which I can't remember, but it's something like "revenge of the daffodils (or tulips)" =)
It's called "Resilience" - published in "Flourish" in 2010: https://flourishonline.org/2010/06/two-spring-poems-by-debra-rienstra/
Jeff, I love the beautiful and unique and somehow hope-filled way you see the world. I'll confess there are too many "Notes of a Make-Believe Farmer" stacked in my over-filled, it-must-be-May, I've-been-treading-water-and-mostly-drowning inbox right now. I'm so glad I chose to read this one. Thanks for sharing these thoughts and both the permission to know our limitations and ask for help AND to rescue or step in to help where we see beauty and need. Great thoughts for this hard world. Thank you.
No desire for cooking (that's actually knowing my limitations there) and barely any time for beautiful eating, but my office is overflowing with houseplants that are somehow flourishing even after 2 1/2 months of just plain hard heartbreak. And I'm writing poetry again this year. So that's cultivating my heart.
I hope our paths cross in person again sometime soon!
Your research project is catching my attention. During Lent, I found many references to the table and food, sharing and feeding. I will look forward to reading your thoughts.
Your words about the garden and transplanting are very comforting to me today. My mother passed away last Friday. It was not unexpected and it was peaceful and I was there. I know many don’t receive those mercies and I see them. Her memorial service is this coming Monday and I am delivering her eulogy. I have never done it before, I’m terrified of speaking in public and I know there is a good chance that my normally stoic demeanor will dissolve on that day. But I want to honor her appropriately and due to several factors, there’s no one else available that I trust to do that. She was a lover of all things green. Plants that looked dead would revive almost immediately for her. She loved to “piddle” with plants and after becoming too weak to do it herself, she continued to direct the rest of us. Thank you for these words and perspective today. They give me another way to think about my mother’s influence. Pray for me on Monday at 11. ❤️
I hope Sally has found something that brings her joy in her new apt.
Congrats, good vibes, and prayers for the PhD journey! May it include lots of delicious meals to accompany the research.
We are moving back across the ocean in 25 days and while we are excited and sad - the act of moving is 🤪🫤😭 When we made the decision to move the first thing I did was find new homes for my plants (can’t bring anything in) so I’m eager to build my new garden beds and get to planting.
Thank you for sharing this. I’m a longtime reader, first time commenter.
A few years back, my mother, who I had a difficult relationship with growing up, moved in with us to help with our children, both of whom had just been diagnosed with a degenerative neuromuscular disorder. Shortly after she moved in with us, we all moved into the house my husband grew up in. Very sadly, his mother had already passed, and his father was not feeling up to keeping up an entire house. So we moved in and became to make that home, our home. Part of this included giving some love to the yard and garden that his mother had cared so well for but that his father was not able to keep up with. Many of her plant babies still remain today. And each year, as I fertilize them and trim them, talk to them and talk badly about the weeds around them, I do it in her honor. I say “your mom’s roses are about to bloom” or “let your sister know that your mom’s peonies are beautiful this year.”
My mom moved out last year and into her own apartment. Over the years that she lived with us, we rebuilt parts of our relationship that was damaged. Other parts feel too far gone. But she, too, is a skilled gardener, and in the years she lived with us, she taught me the names of her favorite plants and when and how best to care for them. We found a columbines flower once, growing up in between the cracks on the edge of the patio and marveled at its tenacity. We found metaphors there, too, of course. This year, two columbines popped up at the base of the lilac bush that my mother in law planted years ago. Aged, cared for, well-loved lilacs with new, surprise baby columbines showing up in the lofty lilac branch shade. Life going on and as much as the world spinning madly on (nod to The Weepies), wrecks me. I’m trying to let it crack me open in a good way too.
So thank you for sharing this. It’s helped me this morning, sitting out on my porch, sort through some of my own thoughts.
Much love, peace, and prayers being sent your way.
Jeff, I really value and appreciate your thoughts about the "rescue" of the garden and your affirmation of the young couple's idea to share the plants and also their acceptance of limitation of ability and interest to maintain what Sally created. What a generous idea to invite people to come with shovels and take what they wanted. I'm so grateful to be on you email list. Enjoy 21st grade.
Just want to say Hi! Jeff. No earth-shaking wisdom, just Hello! to you and Tristan. Be well.
Congratulations on your Ph.D opportunity, Jeff! Sounds fascinating - definitely prayers coming your way. When I think of Sally's years of nuturing and creating, I look over at my Christmas cactus that I've cared for since my first grade teacher gave us all small plantings at the end of the school year. She's an old girl now (I'm 62) but bloomed from December to May this year and is thriving after our move to Oregon two years ago. I've pruned her back (again) so she can rest. I'm wondering about Sally? Does she know that her plants are now everywhere in the neighborhood? I hope she is well. Thank you!
Thank you for being you and sharing your life and thoughts ~ I’m encouraged by the idea of what we can rescue and what to let go of.
Jeff- I enjoyed this newsletter so thoroughly! I could almost see and smell the flowers of which you wrote. What could have been a sad story turned into spreading not only flowers but joy to all your neighbors!
Thank you, will pray for you and happy that you continue to write for us even with your jammed pack schedule
- smiles, Debbie
So beautiful and true about these plants blessing others in a diaspora of Sally's hard work, and how admitting our limitations can be the best option, even if it's bittersweet.
I've had some minor but annoying and limiting health issues this week, but the community and visibility and joy that pops up this time of year for Pride, like big colorful blooms, has given me energy.
So glad that you came to an understanding that what the new homeowners were doing was actually an act of Grace and knowing that they were not the ones to keep that garden what it was. I'd be in a very similar spot, because despite how much I like greenery, I very much have a black thumb. Thank you for sharing this story, it sounds like a beautiful experience!
Congrats on your acceptance to the University of Stellenbosch. I used to live near there and always loved my little day trips or weekends in Stellenbosch… plus great wine if that’s your thing! I do hope you get to spend some time physically present there, it’s beautiful.
It’s funny how something precious to us might be a pain for others. Beauty to Sally was a burden to the new owners, but even they knew the beauty was worth salvaging.
The weather here in Australia has shifted to our mild winter with a heavy dose of wind to go with, and I’ve watched my overgrown chilli plants bow in submission and awe to the weather - somehow, those scotch bonnets hang on tight. I’m hoping they hold long enough for them to dry on the plant so I can harvest and take them to my sister in law, who has a newborn and cannot tend to a garden right now as she’s tending a new life.
There’s grief in that for me. I long to hold a baby and grow that life, but for now I rejoice in the pumpkin vine that burst from the compost - a staunch reminder that life comes from death, and that life might just be abundant and take over a whole section of yard. I rejoice in the chilli that stands tall. I rejoice in the half painted fence and in the chickens that kick dirt at it constantly.
There’s beauty and there’s grief and it’s all okay.
Sally's gardening legacy lives on through many other gardens, not just her own, I believe she would be happy with the benefit and blessing her hard work will make in the lives of others and others to come.