A Patch of Our Own

Scott and I have acquired a small plot of land, a Pea Patch.  It was really my idea and to be my project, but after an hour of heavy labor (and less than a sixth of the way through our plot) My back rebelled and I decided that I had to find some other way of getting the soil ready.  Scott kindly took over, and when he pulled out as many of the rocks and roots as he could, he helped Susanna plant some carrots in her part of our patch while I planted some lettuces, carrots, and summer squash in the rest of it.

Here is a photograph of our patch (ours is only the left half, the plot on the other side of the nearly invisible piece of string is someone else’s).  And Susanna’s part is the small corner of the patch that is marked off by rocks (you can barely see it on the left edge of the frame, about halfway down).

Susanna has had a great time “working hard”: collecting the millions of rocks we fished out of our plot, throwing dirt around, and her favorite part, playing with earthworms.  Here she is with one of her finds.In this last photograph, she is going home after gardening with her baby (these days she likes to carry it around in this backpack fashioned out of a blanket).

It turns out that I don’t know anything about gardening (Liz, maybe I’ll enroll in your gardening class).  So I’m trying focus on enjoying the experience of gardening rather than its fruits, in case there aren’t any.

Easter Festivities

You’ve already seen our bread bunnies (or if you haven’t, you can by clicking here).  Here are some of the other things we did to celebrate Easter.

We dyed Easter eggs and then had smoothies:

Susanna participated in a “Spring Egg Hunt” at our local community center.  I’m not sure she grasped the importance of Christ in all of our Easter festivities, but she certainly latched right on to the idea of an Easter Bunny.  In one of the photographs below, you’ll see her looking adoringly at the famed large white rabbit.  She probably gave him (or her?) three hugs before we dragged her away (dragged Susanna, not the Easter Bunny).  Pictures:            

And here’s our own little egg hunt on Easter morning.  Susanna enjoyed finding the eggs and loved the bubbles.  That little Easter treat is gone already (she dumped all the bubble juice on the floor after two rounds of bubbles), but hopefully the seeds we gave her will sprout.  And here’s the pictures:

One of the wonderful things that happened to me this Easter was an assignment to teach an Easter lesson to the Young Women.  There was no manual so I found myself, in the weeks preceding Easter, reading various talks, articles, and addresses on the wonderful Easter story, and then, on the day before, the story itself in all four of the gospels.  This research and preparation was a fabulous way to prepare for this, perhaps the most sacred of days on our calendar.  I felt more keenly the love of my Father in Heaven and of my Savior Jesus Christ as I partook of the sacrament yesterday than I had in a long time, and it was a potent reminder to me, not only of the power and truth of the atoning sacrifice, but also of our ability as His disciples to find the comfort of his love and the strength of his gospel through the simple pattern of searching, pondering, and praying.

While in the throes of this preparation, I came across a little video produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I really like it, so I’m giving you a link to it here.  It’s about four and a half minutes long.