Hard Things are Good Things and the end of May Garden Tour

Most of the time things in this life we’re living are easy. Sure there’s long hours, plenty of physical labor, and huge, long lists of things that need to be done yesterday. But things are mostly easy in the way work becomes life and coworkers become children and spouses and friends and your heart bursts wide open many times a day wondering “Can this really be real?“

But every once in a while, for a day or a period of time, things feel hard. I try my best to convey here, in this space, that hard isn’t bad, it simply is. Hard is a part of most everything I’ve ever known that is worth doing, and a part of most everything that I know to be good and true and right.

Hard gives me perspective and reminds me not to be too earthly minded. Hard humbles me, teaches me, shapes me, and transforms me. Hard brings me to my knees in a way that easy never has.

And oftentimes, I don’t have to look much further than my children or the garden – both of which I’m grateful to be surrounded by most days – to see the beauty in hard things.

35 hours of pain and travail forgotten the moment they reach my arms.
Hours upon hours of digging, mixing, composting, planting all worth it when things actually start to grow.
A lifetime of teaching, helping, training, and giving to bring them into adulthood.
Bucket after bucket of water hauled seems a distant memory when you take part in even the tiniest of harvests.

When I start to forget that, or when those children make this little cabin seem like it just isn’t quite enough; I like to head to the garden, or rather we like to head to the garden.

This is where we work and talk and and learn and share. This is where we learn biology and history and theology and more. This is where we talk of the future and learn from the past.

This is where we see, in the most tangible of ways, that hard things are good things, and, quite often, hard is just a state of mind.

November 20

When the footers for the kitchen area were put in, the clothesline had to go. We’ve had this steel pipe clothesline since my eight-year-old was a baby. It turns out hanging clothesline between trees does the same thing, plus it looks like a giant game of cat’s cradle. A couple of cold snaps came through…

Moving Dirt

I have often found it hard to wrap my head around the needs of a specific season unless we are in it. In the winter we think of firewood and water-proofing and row covers in the garden. In the summer we think if staying cool, of course, but there is one resource at the forefront…

Food Roots, October 15: where does your food come from?

“Or what if I had simply grown up in a time when food was seasonal? When there was, in each year, a time of more and a time of less? When food was not just there in packages on the supermarket shelf all year?” ~ Jessica Prentice ~ Welcome to another edition of Food Roots!…

Hogs Come to the Homestead (again)

Do you guys remember the day we accidentally started raising hogs? Well, in the end I’m not sure if I gave you the update about how we did end up eating two of them but all of them escaped from the fence at one time or another and that is how they met their demise….

The Pallet Chick Nursery

We’ve had numerous chick hatchings here on the homestead since we first started keeping chickens 2.5 years ago. It seemed like every time there were complications of one sort or another. Hens would get in the box with the broody hen and lay their eggs there, where we couldn’t get to them. We had snakes…

Food Roots – July 23: where does your food come from?

6 Comments

Ellen says:

May 29, 2013 at 3:15 PM

Refreshing and true post. I enjoy your photos, insights, love for your family and what God has given you. Isn’t being a Mom one of the greatest gifts (and challenges;)?

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6
Melissa says:

May 29, 2013 at 9:49 PM

I agree that hard is often a state of mind. Thanks for the reminder!
isis says:

May 30, 2013 at 4:40 AM

thanks for writing this. it helped me to put things in perspective today.
Jennifer says:

May 30, 2013 at 7:28 AM

You’re so right–sometimes hard things are the best to show us God’s faithfulness and our own strength in Him.
sally mae says:

May 31, 2013 at 8:54 AM

http://www.theprudenthomemaker.com/index.php/frugal-living/encouragement/when-queens-ride-by

Keep your chin up!
Therese - Artistta says:

May 31, 2013 at 1:53 PM

So with you and often feel the same.

This has been a hard spring for us and since I do mostly everything myself since my husband still must work 2 jobs to pay the bills, the days get very long and tiring. As you said it though. It’s worth it when things start to grow and produce. We are far, far behind you as we are just planting warm weather seeds like corn and such. We actually have our new pigs tilling up the ground where we hope to put some corn and beans in early next week. Our days have still been mostly in the 50’s and some 60’s (and mid 30’s at night some nights) until just 2 days ago. Doesn’t make it easy to plant, especially with all of the rain. However, we live, we learn and we keep moving forward. On the hardest days I remind myself that women and men have been doing what we are doing (and much more) for thousands of years and they made it through it. The Lord never gives us more than we can handle and as I dig through the dirt with my hands and plant seedlings I’m reminded of how great He is and how thankful that I have the arms, legs, strength to do what I’m doing. The kiddos are learning first hand what it means to grow their own food and take care of animals that we’ll have for meat this winter.

Now hopefully one of these days I can once again start blogging about all of it like you. I honestly don’t know where you find the time.

I hope you have a successful growing season this year and one that gives plenty of food for your family.

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