The Garden

One day while me and my cave mates were wandering around Oia, Santorini, we stumbled upon this tiny little book store where I found the book that ended up joining me on the rest of my journeys.

Sitting freshly upon a table near the back of this nook of a shop was a book called "Elizabeth and her German Garden" by Elizabeth Von Armin.  It kinda just winked at me in this sneaky way so I picked her up and opened to a random page.  I often use this device when searching for new randomly chosen books:  I open up to a random page then read it and if the words spark my interest I get the book.  On this particularly special day I opened onto page 33 and it went like this:

May 16th. - The garden is the place I go to for refuge and shelter, not the house. 

In the house are duties and annoyances, servants to exhort and admonish, furniture,

and meals;  but out there blessings crowd round me at every step-it is there that I am

sorry for the unkindness in me, for those selfish thoughts that are so much worse than

they feel, it is there that all my sins and silliness are forgiven, there that I feel

protected and at home, and every flower and weed is a friend and every tree a lover.

When I was much younger than I am today my family and I would always get the garden ready for the summer on May 24th long weekend.  My father would take me to the garden store and let me pick out herbs and veggies.  Since I have gotten older I have not been spending May 24th long weekends at home.  I always try and snag any opportunity to get get out of this wretched city and into the peaceful countryside or glorious wilderness of beautiful Ontario.  I've been travelling and on the road for 3 months and this is the first week I am home.  I have a scritch in my throat that sneaks up on me and sends me into a coughing and choking fit.  For these reasons and a few completely silly others I decided I must stay home this weekend and take it easy.  Enjoy my bed.  Enjoy my garden.  Usually outback is over-run with my parents but this weekend I took part in their back yard fires and barbecues.  Sunday came and my mom asked if I wanted to help with the garden.  I do not sit still often and I rarely watch tv so I jumped at the opportunity to spend the day in the sun overturning the soil and planting a vegetable and herb garden!

breaking the soil

Creepy Crawly's

Fini!

Garden Philosophy:  Quotes taken from Elizabeth and her German Garden...

"-peace, and happiness, and a reasonable life,..."

Perspective:

"Humility, and the most patient perseverance, seem almost as necessary in gardening as rain and sunshine, and every failure must be used as a stepping-stone to something better."

"Happiness is so wholesome; it invigorates and warms me into piety far more effectually than any amount of trials and griefs, and an unexpected pleasure is the surest means of bringing me to my knees.  In spite of the protestations of some peculiarly constructed persons that they are the better for the trials, I don't believe it.  Such things must sour us, just as happiness must sweeten us, and make us kinder, and more gentle.  And will anybody affirm that it behoves us to be more thankful for trials than for blessings?  We were meant to be happy, and to accept all the happiness offered with thankfulness - indeed, we are none of us ever thankful enough, and yet we each get so much, so very much, more than we deserve."

Relationships:

"...because I don't love things that will only bear the garden for three or four months in the year and require coaxing and petting for the rest of it.  Give me a garden full of strong, healthy creatures, able to stand roughness and cold without dismally giving in and dying. I never could see that delicacy of constitution is pretty, either in plants or woman [or men].  No doubt there are many lovely flowers to be had by heat and constant coaxing, but then for each of these there are fifty others still lovelier that will gratefully grow in God's wholesome air and are blessed in return with a far greater intensity of scent and colour."

Responsibility:

"If your lot makes you cry and be wretched, get rid of it and take another; strike out for yourself; don't listen to the shrieks of your relations, to their gibes or their entreaties; don't let your own microscopic set prescribe your goings- out and comings-in; don't be afraid of public opinion in the shape of the neighbour in the next house, when all the world is before you new and shining, and everything is possible, if you will only be energetic and independent and seize opportunity by the scruff of the neck."