Gardens and Butterflies

Well, Welcome back my dear butterflies!! They are all over and around my house now, enjoying my garden as I am. It's great to see them again.

I just got my garden planted this week and am enjoying it's color and eagerly anticipating more of the same. There is hardly a bare spot in it, but I wouldn't mind more perennials because an annual is a little costly, and I want it much cozier than it was last year. Last year was terrible here on the farm in our gardens, either it was because they dug in a salt water line to water them, or it may have been the soil. Someone got us a load of soil off the land that had already been treated and planted. In any case, almost all of us had bad luck.

I'm really missing my pond of former years. We put our gold fish out last year during the summer months but Rodney and I can't quite agree on what a pond should be. He wants the water so clean that you can see and enjoy the fish, and I 'd like to fill it with plants. We can't have both; our 04, 05, pond was much nicer but we didn't have any fish at that time.

Today I administered an onion on a bee sting. Judas came in crying during nap time and it's amazing what goes through a mother's mind before she can see what actually happened. He was just screaming and I had to remove the stinger without letting any more of the venom get into him. The onion did a fine job of keeping it from swelling and pulling out the little that had gotten in. I could see it getting white and swollen around the sting already and about 10 min. after applying a slice of onion it was all better. I was thankful that a few of his girlfriends came in with him to keep him well destructed while it was healing.

Last week Judas stepped into a rusty nail and we really took it seriously. We've been soaking his foot in salt water everyday and applying a ointment that keeps it clean, but we are not safe yet. The incubation period for tetanus is two weeks, but the area looks very good already. He's been literally eating dirt since he's been old enough to grab it and should be immune by now.

I can't say that I'm not scared because there was one night that I could hardly sleep. I watched my little angel sleep to make sure he wasn't having any spasms of any kind. I read some scripture and prayed and listened again to Dr. Heroet's lecture to remind me why we made the decision not to vaccinate in the first place. The fear factor is usually no problem for me because I'm used to facing up to them and conquering. I could let myself get into a frenzy every time Rodney leaves the house too, thinking this may be the last time I will see him, but sitting around and obsessing about it will not serve to improve the quality of life. When something happens we'll deal with it. I can tell you, I've never been so happy to hear those annoying noises that little boys like to make with their mouths. Swishing spit, and blowing air out or their lips in all kinds of ways, means that he doesn't have lockjaw and his respiratory system is doing just fine.

I guess I've been thinking a lot this week about how 'fearfully and wonderfully' we've been made, with the body's God given ability to heal, clean and build. Also how fragile our earth is, I mean, just move the sun 1% closer or further away from the earth and all life will die. The same goes for the moon, and try raising the temperature of the water a few degrees, or mess it up a bit more and you are in trouble. Remove a measly eight inches of topsoil and we lose the plants that use the sun's energy to make food. It is God who sustains us, cares for us and gives us His word that we are safe in His keeping. Where was I when He made the firefly? Is anything to hard for Him? The wind, the earth, water and fire obey His every command.

My sweetheart has been flying a remote control airplane the last few moths with his brother Stanley. Yesterday they crashed into a tree for only the third time, and today they had to get the forklift to get it down, and I got some nice pictures of the kids watching. The girls are my sister Melinda's and the little boy is Hans. We get together in the evenings when there is hardly any wind to watch them fly. Its a nice and relaxing thing to do with the kids and the daddy's enjoyed many an evening working on it.