May the Lord bless this land with precious dew from heaven above and with the deep waters that lie below; with the best the sun brings forth and the finest the moon can yield.
Deuteronomy 33
This time of year I find it hard to do anything but work in the yard. The temperatures are cool enough, the sky is blue enough, the greenery is lush enough and the flowers are brilliant enough to make one want to hold on to the moment forever.
Contrary to winters past, the greenhouse plants weathered the cold temperatures well. Last year’s geranium is displaying four dazzling red blooms. The plant was rooted from a few leaf clippings and I’m extraordinarily proud of it. The cheapest way to garner a lot of plants is to beg them, borrow them or propagate them yourself.
Prairie neighbor Kathy McCoy, who knows all about growing green things in the Prairie, brings tiny sprouts of various plants potted in recycled yogurt cups to Shaeffer’s Chapel each Sunday morning. She leaves them on the concrete drive-through outside the door where congregants are welcome to choose any of her offerings.
Last week Kathy shared sprouts of four o’clocks. I divided the tender young things and planted them in three different locations, hoping to give them the best chance of survival. If they flourish they will reseed themselves and every afternoon around four o’clock, about coffee time, there will be masses of beautiful flowers. As yet, I do not know what color they will be as four o’clocks come in yellow and pink and a host of other colors.
Gardening is always a work in progress and what seems to work well this year may not next year. I’ve given up growing vegetables but rely on neighbors Willis Pope and Nick Hairston, who are much better at it than I am. They enjoy competing with one another in garden production and we are often the lucky recipients of the fruits of their competition whether it is masses of zinnias, onions, peppers or tomatoes.
My offering in trade is the crappie Sam catches which encourages him to fish more, as if he needs any further encouragement. Some folks who insist they don’t like fish will find they enjoy crappie baked with ranch dressing and seasoned breadcrumbs. Ranch-baked crappie is my “go-to” meal for company; in fact, my brother, Skip Shelton, requested three meals of crappie for his birthday … not one, but three.
And so Skip received his birthday request and left behind his own gift of a smoked turkey which he had “harvested” himself.
Later, I bagged some crappie fillets and smoked turkey and took it over to my friend, Joe Long, who works at the Oktibbeha County Chancery Clerk’s office and is also the bi-vocational pastor of True Vine Missionary Baptist Church on Artesia Road. Joe has many gifts to give, and all I can say for Joe is that he simply gives them all.
Then there’s Amanda Stoll who raises chickens and provides our eggs … for the deviled eggs we take to church … and so it grows.
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