Failures?

Technorati Tags: gardening,homesteading

Ezek 47:12 NKJV
12 Along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow all kinds of trees used for food; their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine."

Well, at this point in time, the garden is sort of a failure.  Do you like my beautiful luscious weeds? Somewhere in the middle of the mass of the picture on the right is my asparagus that went to fern again.  This was supposed to be the first year I could harvest some, and I failed to get out and harvest it!  The storms and rain/floods that we had kept me out of garden and then things just got busy.

I did finally go buy some plants a few weeks ago, but have only got a few tomato plants and cukes in.  Have got to get the rest in this week.  Very late garden, but still hoping for a  harvest in fall.  Even failed to keep up with the strawberries this year.  Harvested some, but let too many go to waste. How sad and wasteful, not to mention that we would have been blessed with the extra goodies this winter.

Some was laziness, but most was due to our situation with the foster children.  I always have so many appointments (sometimes 3 in one day!!) to go to and between work and homeschool and trying to keep everyone safe, a lot of things just didn’t get done.  I was able to harvest some strawberries and enjoy a  yummy homemade strawberry shortcake cake.

I hope to have some success pictures next week of a nicely groomed garden.  Homestead Dad has been working hard cutting down the weeds, tilling them under and has constructed 4’ X 4’ boxes for me.  We are going to try raised bed in boxes this year for some things.  We were very successful with the raised beds in the ground, but hard to maintain the weeds.  The tomatoes and cukes are still going into the ground where we have the fencing up for them.  I hope to get the peppers into one of the beds and not sure what else at this point (that bushy green thing below is the horseradish I got from a friend last year that we can start to harvest next year).

Really disappointed in what hasn’t been done, but I’m not giving up!  I will press on and we will at least have some yummy salsa in the fall!!  Gotta have that salsa!  I make it really hot for Jearl and then some nice mild with tang for me and everyone else.  I do get lots of compliments so I think the recipe I use is a really good one.  I do can it because I like to have it ready to go year round.

Failure?  No, just delayed and not as good as it could have been.  We have been redeemed by our Lord and Savior, we are not failures!

How’s your garden growing?  Trying any new techniques or plants?

Joy Comes in the Morning

Technorati Tags: Foster parenting,gardening

Psalm 30:5 NKJV
For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.

Psalm 90:13-15  NIV

¹³ Relent, LORD! How long will it be?  Have compassion on your servants. ¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. ¹⁵ Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble. 

I feel as if we have had our share of trials this year.  Of course nothing compares to the losses of those around us with the floods and storms, so Lord, forgive my whining and make my heart glad!  We continue to have some serious challenges with the foster child we still have.  As many of you know we took the two brothers back in hopes of being able to still help them.  Once the second brother arrived everything fell apart.  The older brother that had come back to us first started manifesting many dangerous behaviors and we had to have him removed again for the safety of my son and his brother. 

We decided to still try to work with the younger brother, who is now almost 10, but alas, it is not to be.  My son who is 7 has now been exposed to behaviors that are VERY unacceptable.  We have given our required two week notice and I am afraid we will not be able to keep him any longer.  We are now on “lock down” where I supervise the boys every moment.  They must be in my vision every moment.  I am mostly a stay at home mom, so this can get challenging when I must leave the room.  The rule is, my son comes with me and stays with me when I must attend to something.  I can leave no room to chance anymore at this point.  It will be a stressful week, but with God we are more than able.

It is sad that we did not have a better outcome, but the well being of my child has already been violated and his innocence broken.  We knew we didn’t want to have older children in our home and we broke our own rule.  We have now paid the price and so has our son.  I pray that God can erase from his memory the things he has seen and been shown to do.  What fools we have been.  I repent and ask for forgiveness and I know my God hears my voice. 

I’m sure that everyone else already knows this, but if you are looking for insight into fostering, I HIGHLY recommend that you DO NOT take any children near the age or older than your child. DON’T DO IT!!  You just never know.  We happened to get one of the worse case scenarios you can get and it was our first time out.  We are fairly angry with our agency because they had to have known to some degree if not all.  We asked the questions, just evidently not the exact right ones in the exact right way, because we were constantly led to believe that this was all new to them.  Everyone in the system that I have spoken to that is involved with this case has said it was one of, if not THE, hardest case they have every had.  So now what do you think??  My response has not been so joyous as I have heard this repeated on different occasions. 

We are picking up the pieces and moving on. We will try again.  I hope we have a better experience.  We have been assured by many that not all in the system are such rough cases.  We will try with perhaps age 5 and under, maybe younger. 

I have not had the time or felt like blogging.  I was pretty close to just shutting it down for now, but I love to babble and this is such a good outlet for that, isn’t it?  Seriously, I just have a lot I want to share and learn from fellow bloggers.  We really want to get this homestead stuff going.  We just haven’t had the time or resources to do much.  With the heavy rains and our schedule, I have not even gotten the garden in yet!!  I will share in a separate story.  Enough for now.  Blessings to all.  Praying for joyous weekends for all of you. 

Any challenges in your life lately you would like to share?  Better yet, are you confident that Jesus will walk you through every one of them?