Iced Tea Chat: A Long Summer Sigh

Hello dears.  It's so lovely to sit and chat once again.  Shall you have mint or lemon with your iced tea?  There's something necessarily refreshing about tinkling ice and sweaty glasses this time of year isn't there. It's absolutely essential to a summer's day.  Especially in August.

Well summer is dwindling now.  We've a holiday coming up here in the coming weekend and then even if the heat does endure, we all breathe a collective sigh of relief because we know it's almost over.  Labor Day seems awfully early this year, but I don't suppose it is.  I just suppose it's everything to do with how quickly summer ran once it truly started.

My little garden has been an expensive proposition in many ways.  Yes, it has.  I paid more for tomato plants than I might have for premium tomatoes at the grocery.  I got perhaps ten of various sizes, not one of them large enough to feed one person.  The onion tops were eaten, and the onions failed to develop at all, but I managed to get about 1/4 cup of onions chopped when I did harvest.  I got one eggplant about the size of a duck egg.  The basil took months to catch hold.  I spent $10 on two bell pepper plants and got one that wasn't even the size of a large egg.  The dill looked stunted all summer then suddenly went to seed.  Only oregano has thrived this year.  Sigh. 

It made me rather glad I hadn't gone to huge expense to set my garden up.  Yes, I have those two planters I purchased, but mostly I used what I had for pots and tomato cages were long forked limbs that fell from trees.  The soil can be amended and reused.  

Despite my failures, I plan to order raised bed planters over the next few months to put along the outside edges of the patio.  I've decided that I'm going to forget putting up fencing and mulching a big lot of ground and building a 'big' garden, that what I really want is something more or less kitchen garden sized and the patio has the benefit of being near a water source, because they are close enough to the house, Rufus might startle off the deer.

I had an equally abysmal summer for planting flower seeds.  I think I had four zinnias appear, not one bit of the impatiens or other seeds that were sown.  The few marigolds that finally took hold look so cheerful just now and I appreciate their enthusiasm.  I found a few volunteer Touch Me Nots, but never did find my packet of seeds of that or the Stars of India that I so wanted to plant this year.

The flowering plants I purchased have done their best and I can't ask more of them.  The prettiest ones have been the least expensive of course, and the rescued plants are willing to show their gratitude by thriving.  The pricier ones...I guess they felt they could afford to be finicky and demand a wee bit of special attention.  

Nevertheless, I plan to stock up on seeds for next spring and will hope that a better quality seed might have a better rate of germination and growth. 

I have gained a good bit of pleasure from gardening despite the disappointments.  It's led to a new hobby of watching gardening videos where I've learned a great deal about how to handle potential problems, seen amazing varieties that I'd love to attempt growing, and just admired the aesthetic beauty that some are able to give their garden areas.   

I do think I can be better eventually.  I just need to figure out sun patterns, varieties and soil requirements that work best for where I live.   Gardening is an optimistic sport, isn't it?

Garden experiments shall continue.  I am serious about learning, but not so serious that I'm willing to spend thousands first and then attempt to recover my costs.  I'd rather do my favorite method of 'little bites' and getting things done in that way over a period of time.  

I've enjoyed going outdoors each morning to check on progress, the elation of my few successes, and just tending to something that I could visibly see was attempting to thrive.  Caleb and I did get a few nature lessons as we learned to recognize the pesky Japanese beetle, the destructive green horned worms.  We saw a world of butterflies, dragonflies, and even found a stick bug as well as a praying mantis to ooh and ah over.  We've looked at spiders and lizards and frogs and toads.  We saw a Leaf bug, and my first time happened to be Caleb's first as well.   That's been lots of fun.  

I have decided that I want to get prepared to keep chickens.  I think I'll start small and learn as I go along.  First, I must determine what sort of coop would be best and then whether or not we dare to let them free range here.  I want to study breeds, and which will do best for our climate.  I'm not interested in meat birds but simply egg producers.  

I confess its part nostalgia for my childhood.  Mama and Daddy kept chickens for a few years and my great grandmother that lived in the foothills of South Carolina had a chicken coop attached to the side of her outhouse.   I remember distinctly how comforting it was to sit in the semi darkness of the outhouse and listen to the soft chirrups and gentle clucking sounds of chickens.  It made the outhouse less foreign and scary seeming.

Granny and Grandaddy raised chickens as well, but I don't recall them having many.  There was a good-sized chicken house here on the place, but I never recall it being filled.   I did stumble across a photo of Granny, a young wife, standing amidst a flock of white hens with a baby in her arms.  I'll have to see if I can find that one once more.  I don't know just where it was taken.  It might have been out at Big Mama's or on one of the farms where Grandaddy worked in the early days of their marriage, but I do know it wasn't their farm here because they didn't purchase that until Mama was 8 or 9.  Then they put built a chicken house and put in egg layers and sold eggs to help pay off the farm.

I'll say this: I have had chickens before, long ago and frankly I don't know how anyone saves money no matter how humble the coop or the flock because they will eat their weight ten times over in feed and feed is expensive...But the benefits!  Manure (I know, it gags me too but I'm being optimistic here!) and eggs, and the lovely sight of them just pecking about in the yard and hearing them...Well there are benefits.

Bess kept chickens for her first three years here.  She got the chickens that first Spring while they were still working on the house.  At times she had eggs to spare and shared them.  Eventually though predators got to them and decimated the whole flock.  Sam spied coyotes sitting staring at the pen, they put an owl decoy to discourage the hawks that were wont to sit on the fence and peer at the hens.  I think they might have had a weasel get them at some point.  It was a lot of heartache.  They had an old-fashioned coop with an open run and the chickens at first were free rangers and insisted on roosting in the trees, but as they expanded their flock and brought in different breeds it was necessary to enclose them for their own protection.  Not that it was a perfect solution by any means.  

My old coop was fully enclosed, covered and surrounded and we didn't have any real issues with predators.  I think I'd rather go that route than have an open run, but we shall see.

I don't want a large flock of birds, perhaps a dozen all told, and a rooster because why keep chickens if you can't have a rooster to crow?  I'll be sure though to get a breed of birds that is people friendly.  I remember Mama and Daddy had a horrid old rooster and you literally took life in your own hands when you entered that coop to collect eggs. 

Reminds me of Granny's childhood tale of a rooster that spurred her every day, until one day she'd had enough and kicked him so hard he went over the fence.  When her papa came home from the field and found the rooster in the yard, he asked her how he got there, and she told him she'd kicked the mean old thing.  Her papa might have laughed but he also made her catch the rooster and put him back into the chicken pen.  The memory of that rooster was enough to make her mad even talking about him forty and fifty years later, lol.  I definitely don't want such a rooster about me!

But chickens will come later, after I get the coop sorted out and if it goes as most things do it will likely be a long while before I'm at that stage.  

I talked to Amie one day this past week. I'd called to tell her that Ross's birthday gift would arrive early.  She keeps her eyes out for the packages I send and then puts them away until the birthday arrives.  She asked me, as we were texting, if she could call.  I told her sure.

I settled in for a long cozy chat.  It wasn't an easy talk.  They are having difficulties with grown children, one who is mentally ill and particularly difficult.  For their own and their younger children's safety and sanity, they cannot have her live with them.  But at the moment she is not doing well.  I've noted that these mental issues ebb and flow with most people.  They do well for a bit and then they are off into a deep psychotic episode. 

I was talking with them from my viewpoint of dealing with lesser issues and how strained things had become at some points.  I shared with them the conclusion I'd come to this summer that I am not personally responsible for every crisis nor is it my place to immediately go into fix-it mode when such things occur and how difficult it was to hold that boundary line.  When Amie wailed, "I keep asking myself what I did wrong?!", my heart went out to her.   I reminded her of something I learned long ago.  

"You did the best you could where you were at that time.  ALL parents make mistakes.  We're human.  We're learning.  But you grow and you do better. Acknowledge where you failed, forgive yourself and move on.  But remember there does come a point where you have to realize that just because it is your child, they are no longer children.  They are adults who make their own choices and sometimes they make mistakes.  It's up to them to deal with the consequences.  Your job now is to encourage but not to make yourself a crutch.   That's the hard thing."

She had put Ben on the phone with us earlier in the conversation.  We all three choked on tears as we carried on our three-way conversation.  Some of you are too well aware of what I mean when I say our children's hurts and troubles hit us harder as they age...and how necessary it is that we draw boundary lines and put rules in place for their sake and ours.  It's hard at three.  It's harder still once they hit their 20's and 30's and 40's... 

At the end of the long conversation, as we were closing the phone call, Amie said, "Mama?  I just want you to know that I appreciate what you had to say today.  And when you were speaking, I could hear Granny in you..."   My eyes filled with tears at that. I desire to have the sort of wisdom my Granny had above all.  I've missed her mightily these past few years especially as one hard thing right after another has hit us, and I've longed many a time to go to her and just unload everything and gain her peace and wisdom.  To hear that I'd been able to do that for my oldest child was beyond my best wishes.   

With Katie back at work full time outside of the home, Caleb has required more of my attentions.  I forgot how exhausting it is to be sole caregiver for most of the day to a small child.  Yes, John is here, and he does help at times, and then again there are times when he just doesn't.  Right now, he's in the 'doesn't' phase.  I'm not fussing.  He deserves time to take a break from it, too.  By the time Katie comes in, Caleb is almost ready to go to bed.  He's driven by his own internal schedule and that says that 6:30 is the time to go to his room and start settling in for the night.  Some evenings it's a battle to get him to leave Kate alone long enough for her to eat a hasty supper.  He wants his bed and his Mama in the room with him.  Usually around 7:15 he is sound asleep.  He will usually sleep all night long until he wakes the next morning around 6am or so.

Katie usually gets him some juice, changes him from pajamas to clothes, turns on his tv and then shuts the door to the room, leaving him in it.  Caleb will stay in the room and watch tv without any fuss.  John will let him out about 20 minutes later, after he's had time to read his Bible.  Then he will make Caleb his first breakfast.  Usually this is some sort of fruit and cereal or yogurt.  

And where am I?  Usually sleeping in until about 8 or 8:15. If I am awake earlier, I sometimes stay in my room and make the bed, clean the bath, pick things up, etc.  Then I dress and come out of the room.  

John made a rule that I am off limits until I've had my first cup of coffee. That sometimes works out well.  Other mornings, not so much.  From the point where that cup of coffee is finished, or I declare it done, it's my shift.  And so, the long day begins and goes on until we are through with supper.  Thankfully there is a quiet time in each day where we all separate and recover.   Caleb has gone to his room lately.  We leave the door open, but he is in his room.  I generally get in my chair, but occasionally I might opt to go lie down.  John will watch tv.  Now that he has his earbuds, I get the benefit of the quietness about me.  That helps me to wind down a lot, having that quiet space in my day. 

It's not easy tending to a child at this age and I mean it sincerely.  I felt it was a lot harder at 33 than it was at 22 and I can tell you sincerely that it's even harder when you're nearer 66 than 33!  Perhaps it's because we're carrying the burden of grown children, and a growing child is a whole different proposition.  It's too much, even if the child is quite good overall and Caleb is good.

He's so funny.  Right now, when he's gotten in trouble he'll tell me seriously, "I'm not in trouble!  I'm happy!" As though happiness negated any mischief he might have been in that morning or about to commit.  

Wouldn't it be grand if happiness did negate all the bad stuff in life?

Not that I'm an expert on being happy.  I am optimistic but it's not the same thing as being happy.  Optimism is the conviction that everything is going to be better...but happiness is a more difficult thing to pin down.  I can't even explain happiness.  Contentment I can explain, but not happiness.  And I've yet to find a truly suitable definition of what it is, but I suspect it's nothing to do with Caleb's current definition, either.

Another thing I've wrestled with lately is a statement someone made months ago to me.  "I've  got testimonies!" she said rather proudly and proceeded to tell me all the awful things that have happened in her life.  It disturbed me because I knew the woman to be less than likable and she seemed to feel that her testimony seemed to give her license to be less than nice at times, to carry a grudge.  But it also bothered me because she seemed to feel that her testimony was uniquely difficult.  It wasn't.  The truth is you can stop anyone at any time and if you dig just a little, you'll soon discover that they have known heartaches and trials and troubles.  In other words, they have testimonies, too.  We all have testimonies.

Well that conversation and the disturbance it created has stuck with me for all these months.  I'd take it out periodically and look at my reaction to it and ask, "WHY am I letting this bug me even yet?"

Today the answer came.  It isn't our testimony that's the important thing.  Testimonies generally are times of testing.  They are important in our spiritual development and in maturing us but they aren't the sum of us.  No...

It's not the testimony but the witness we present that is the most important thing of all.  And that witness isn't made up of just isolated incidents.  Our witness is how we face every single situation every single day, good and bad, easy and hard, sweet and bitter.  I've known people who dealt with testimonial times like true Stoics, who were to be admired for how they faced the most awful things,  but their witness was a hard one to experience.  Nasty tempered, bitter, foul-mouthed, stingy, greedy...You name it.  

None of us are a perfect witness all the time.  My witness is showing on those days when I have patience that surprises me, and on those days when anxiety has lifted, or there's just a day when everything goes right from start to finish and my outlook is sunny.   My witness is showing when I'm sulky over a hasty reply from John, or an upset with one of my children, or I'm frustrated over potty training.  I wish that my witness was a good one every day in every situation, but the truth is that someone will note my witness most often on those days when I am frustrated far more than when I'm being more than patient.  Yet even on my bad days, it behooves me to remember that this too is my witness and train my temper, my anxiety (oh that's the tough one!), my irritation.  I don't have to be a martyr.  I don't have to come across as a smug saint.  I do have to do my utmost to gain the upperhand of emotions when they are about to escalate and there is the witness I need to be to another.  It's the discipline, that strength of character, kindness, retrieving my lost patience, apologizing for my hasty words.   

I'm nowhere near the mark I desire to be. 

I shall end here.  We've a summer cold in the house and I have every desire to prevent it's taking over the household.  Chicken soup is on simmering as I write, though it's 93 outdoors.  I've worked myself to a frazzle this morning trying to whip the kitchen back into shape and there's so much more to be done, I long to stop and weep but I will not.  I've got to discipline myself to get back into the harder daily work once more now that the lovely vacation month is over.  However, it's been a lovely restful time to sit and chat with you today.  When next we meet for a chat, it will likely be fall...and isn't that a lovely thought?!