From the Director
I grew up in western Pennsylvania and around this time of year, the cicadas started making their “weing, weing” noises in the trees everywhere and we knew summer was coming to an end, and soon we’d be going back to school. These days, summers are getting longer and hotter and back-to-school starts sooner. I hope that all our readers have been enjoying a slower pace, with some iced tea in the shade.
At our house in Omaha, the 47 community gardens we have fenced off are peacefully busy growing tomatoes and all kinds of vegetables. In my two little plots, I have some corn stalks with squash around them and pole beans climbing up them, Native American style. I hope they produce! I also have some beets, Swiss chard, and carrots with a few tomatoes of my own. In September, I plan to plant some Korean cabbage to harvest in November after the first frost.
For me, getting out in various weather conditions, on uneven terrain, in new places, with the smells of trees, grass, plants of all kinds, and the possibility of meeting animals along the way has always been what I enjoy. And getting my hands dirty in a garden, smelling fresh soil, and sweating a little are how I relax, even if it’s work. I’ve never been a person who liked to exercise on machines indoors. Around Earth Day in April, we had around twenty students and some parents from a local parish grade school join us in planting 65 tree seedlings, mostly red oak but with some flowering trees, apples, pears, persimmons, and hazelnuts. The deer and squirrels need to eat, too. We can only hope most of them grow. I encourage the kids not to use gloves even if they might get a blister or a cut. Getting dirt under the fingernails is more important.
Summer is a good time to just sit and remember and hopefully give thanks.
All of us are who we are. We grew up with our family members in cities, suburbs, or the country. Some of my fondest memories are turning over the garden of my grandmother every spring. She would have piled maple leaves from the yard in autumn in the garden and I came and turned them over into the earth in the spring. I’ll always remember how many earthworms got cut in half by my shovel, but how rich that dirt was! I loved it even as I felt guilty about the worms. And I loved cutting her grass with the old push mower, piling up the grass for next year’s garden. At other times, I washed her windows on a ladder with vinegar water and dried them with old newspapers. My reward was sugar cookies with orange icing that she would make and iced tea. Another of my jobs was to keep the hedges around our front cut with clippers. Clip, clip, clip. No shirt, sweating, getting sunburned. We didn’t keep soda in the house in those days, but my mother would have some Kool-Aid popsicles in an ice tray in the refrigerator. So refreshing!
Summer is a good time to just sit and remember and hopefully give thanks. Whatever our experiences were, they are the little or big things that have made us who we are. It’s good for us to sit with them and decide to appreciate them and carry them with us, or to let them go, and move to a different place. But we are who we are and God is good!
