God Provides

If only more people understood.

If only I understood. This is what Traherne was on about.

I complain about not having time to get into the garden as much as I would like, and sure, there are a lot of tasks that ought to be done, for productivity and for beauty, but honestly…

It still produces.

We can go out to the garden any day of the week and pick enough greens for a dozen salads.

I cut these Swiss chard leaves on the right down to the root the day I took this picture. The ones on the lower left I had cut down the same way just three days prior, and look! Already new leaves are forming. Almost enough for a salad.

While we are at it we can pick beets and radishes for dinner. Even the weeds have their uses. Here is a pail of weeds, that will soon be a snack for our cow

Not enough for her to live on, but it makes a welcome addition to the dry hay.

Another bucket goes to the sheep, who love it so much they will come up and eat it right out of our hands.

The pasture is dry, and the cool season grasses are not growing worth a darn. But we can still feed our animals, with leftover scraps from the garden.

This willow tree is a marvel. Between it and our other pollarded willow it produced enough branches to feed the livestock, supplementing their hay, for a month and a half. We stripped it bare and look at it! Already re-growing new shoots for next year.

The squash and pumpkins have not been watered in weeks, but have been quietly ripening as the vines die out around them.

The quince trees have been fruitful. Too fruitful, in fact.

The branches cannot support the weight, and they have been breaking off. We had to tie them up to keep them from snapping.

Is this disappointing? A bit. But it shouldn’t be. The fact is that we have fruit, and in a month we will have more ripe fruit than we know what to do with. It is all a gift. The weeds are a gift.

Even the hemlock is a gift, because it made me prioritize weeding, which neatened up the garden, filled the compost and provided fodder for our animals, and a much needed opportunity to listen to some audio books, by myself and with the kids.