Greenhouse Frustration

For whatever reason, we usually need Monday as a day to regroup. In this case, Phil had been preparing for Bible study on Saturday evening, and ended up enjoying himself so much that he looked at the passage for eight hours before coming to bed around 3am. That pretty much destroyed his ability to function on Monday until he had made up at least part of the sleep deficit.

I woke up Monday from a vivid dream in which I was worshipping Diana (the ancient goddess), which was highly offensive to me when I awoke, and didn't get my week off to a good start. I'm afraid all Lykoshes were fairly grumpy.

The worst moment came when I was speaking to a product representative about amending our greenhouse soil with the mix the lab recommended. I'm not sure we fully understood one another, but the quoted price was $200.

And in the moment, I was just done. I've transplanted in berry bushes, but I know they're not thriving, and the hillside above the greenhouse continues to erode into the greenhouse, creating odd water pockets and a sea of mush in the rain, and crusting over the rich greenhouse soil in dry cracks when dry.

I find it hard to believe that the brambles will actually produce anything (although I know that past performance doesn't predict the future events: just because we have never HAD berries grow, doesn't mean they will never grow); even if they do produce something, I find it hard to believe that we would have a market enough to sell $200 worth of berries. The hard thing with limited scale is that it can be a bit too much for personal consumption, but a good deal too little for a farmer's market.

So that was Monday: my quiet despair over the farm's future productivity, grumpy faces, and sleepy eyes.

Which was a bit silly because on Sunday I heard a sermon about Joshua, that his battle was already won when he went off to circle Jericho, and he simply had to go forward in that reality. It struck me anew that, if the Lord told us to start a farm, we are in the same boat as Joshua: we will have success in the end.

But perhaps the days that are most encouraging are often followed by days that are the most discouraging. From the mountain to the valley: it happens.

Tuesday evening I went to pick up my Dad at the airport. We had spent the day cleaning and vacuuming (me) and doing laundry (Isaiah and Phil).

We also bought a load of compost to spread on our orchard and market garden: nine cubic yards of beautiful black compost. It doesn't make a very large pile on the ground, and will, presumably, be a thin layer spread on the surface of the soil.

And as I fed the bees, a praying mantis greeted me from the roof.

Such a beautiful bug. I brought him to show the boys, and Joe tracked him for an hour or so as he climbed from the floor up to the top of the bookcase before he got slightly enmeshed in a spider web, at which point we let him go.