Satan's Gardener - Named

There is a Rhythm to my homestead. There is a natural order of things. When things are out of order it seems like the world is spinning out of control. Back before all of the modern technology that we have today farmers and gardeners lived and died by that rhythm. The closer you get to nature the more you understand some of the passages in the bible. Don’t get me wrong, most of the authors of the Bible were wealthy men far separated from the daily rhythm of the farm if they wrote what was there or if they had someone else do it I don’t know. The presidents of today don’t write their own Memoirs they have a ghost writer. I wonder if it was that way back then. Either way whoever wrote this passage must have lived on a farm at one time.  

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; 7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace" (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).

I love that passage so much that I think someone should make a song out of it. Wait?????????

This week on the homestead we have not had much rain and it doesn’t look like we will get any in the next 5 days either. I want to get my Sweet Potatoes out of the bed and into the garden. But, I do not want to water them every day twice per day for a week. Now they take about 90 to 120 days to make taters. I have always planted them as close as I could to the first week of June. But last week and this week no rain is on the horizon. When you plant sweet potatoes they will have to be watered as tender slips till they are established if it is not raining. If I planted them on June 1st then we would have 150 days till the first USDA projected frost date. So I am good to wait. My absolute last day to transplant them will be July 1st but in my opinion that would be way too late. So I will wait until the next forecast rain and plant them the day before.

As far as planting by the signs goes, this week Friday and Saturday would be the optimum days to plant. However, then I might have to water them twice per day for a week and I don’t want to do that. So even if it is a barren sign I will plant them when I can. My grandparents practiced planting by the signs fairly faithfully but they were also very pragmatic. Rain came when it took a notion and not when the signs are favorable. So they did what they had to when the season arose. 

I will never forget when I started talking about gardening by the signs and a few of those “hate everything” Christians really attacked it as gardening with the DEVIL. You know the ones, in the pew every week sitting right up front but wouldn’t help anyone else unless someone was watching. Brother and Sister better than you. “do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.” They are quick to condemn, not because they are worried for anyone else but because they want to be seen as morally superior amongst men for their own ego. It gives them a feeling of power. If my mom and dad and my grandparents didn’t make it into heaven then it is not a place I want to go anyway, especially if I have to be brow beaten by these publican bible thumpers. I am just glad that I, nor anyone else, get to make that decision. Imagine what heaven would be full of if the average churchgoers got to decide who was there!!!

Back to the rhythm, I have one here on this homestead. As we move into summer mine slows down. I can’t do hot anymore. As a kid I could stay all day in the creek at 98 degrees and be happy as a pig in a wallow. Today I really can’t take that heat. So my rhythm has me up at 5 am to get breakfast and do any other business that needs done and then out on the homestead by daylight. In the summer it is 80+ degrees around here by at least 11 am so most of my work has to occur before that. Once it hits 85 I can’t even work in the shade anymore. I love our 300 yr old maple trees. So I get in about 5 - 6 hours work in the morning and then if it cools down in the last hour of dusk and into the first hour of night I can go out and use the tractor or water or other stuff that needs done. One of those cab over tractors would be so nice with heat and air!!! I just can't imagine that though, I can barely afford the diesel for the tractor I have. 

Spring and fall are my seasons. I also used to love winter. But anymore I get cold. I used to never get cold. I spent so many days out hunting and trapping in the winter and I never got cold, even with ice in my mustache. Nowadays I get cold at 30 degrees to the point it is painful. Every joint I have aches at about 30 degrees. So my workshop has a wood stove and when I build the tractor shed I intend to build a heated and cooled place in it for doing the indoor stuff that Crystal hates for me to do in the house. You guys know the stuff I’m talking about, greasy, oily, noisy, messy, smelly stuff. Now, I am not sentenced outside, outside is where I really like to be. This room/space would help me expand my work day during both winter and summer. Now I just actually have to get at building it.  

I hope this finds you well. Send up a prayer for us when you get a chance and I will send up one for you. Pay attention to the rhythm of life on your homestead because when it is off the whole world is off kilter. Now it is off and up to Gods house - My Barn - to commune and find some inner peace. Always remember that Life, like Homesteading, is a Marathon NOT a Sprint – Slow Down and Enjoy the Ride!!!

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