Garden thoughts

Night before last it got down to 24 degrees. Mighty cold. Today, right now it is a warm and balmy 67 degrees F outside. Texas weather at its finest. Warm enough for me to grab my gardening gloves and spend some time in the dirt. I pulled weeds, trimmed back some plants and looked at the tiny buds appearing on the fruit trees. In just two weeks time we will be putting onions and potatoes in the garden. The groundhog saw his shadow but we are still preparing the garden beds.
Digging in the earth is a grounding activity. Sounds funny to say that, sort of a play on words, but its true. You feel better digging in the dirt, looking up at the blue sky once in a while. We had terrible soil on this land when we moved here, the kind that most people say "forget it" when a garden is mentioned, but we worked at the soil, composted, brought in sand to lighten it up and brought in animal manure to enrich it. Each year amending the soil more and more. Hard work ? Sure ! Worth it ? You bet ! I chuckle at folks with a yard that give up on their land, thinking its too much work to grow a garden or saying their land is bad. If you have garbage, you can change your soil. Work on a small part, little by little making it bigger. Growing your own food is profoundly spiritual. Meaningful exercise. Keeping you connected to the value of your work.
The sun felt good today on my arms. Winter covers us up. I heard childrens voices carried on the wind, playful voices. You could hear their excitement from playing without being bundled up against the cold. I know just how they feel. Tomorrow might just be a good day for hiking.
My mind is racing with plans of planting all sorts of things this spring. Changing the way the front of the house looks. More Zen like. Calmer, less fussy but still pretty. I want a less fussy look all around. In the house and out. More simple, more calming, meditative really. The more I seek to know myself, and find that deep quietude of heart, the less stuff I want around me, you know stuff you have to move, feel guilty about because you spent money on it and haven't done anything with it, the unfinished project stuff, the stuff you have to dust, move to dust, worry about breaking, worry about someone else breaking it and then there are the things we look at and wonder what in the world we were thinking about when we bought it, cause now it seems pretty ugly to us. I want less clutter, inside and out, physically and emotionally. Having my surroundings reflect what I find true value in. I feel that way about my food too. Less gourmet, more natural, more honest. Hummm, that word honest just popped out and you know, its true. I want my whole life to be more honest, more real, more authentic, less hidden by stuff. If a person comes to visit me now, they are not going to be commenting on how my house is decorated or about the collections they see, our conversation will be about people and not things. I like that. I like the "down to earth" of that. If a poor person came to visit me now, he would not leave wishing he had what I have, and if a rich person comes to visit me, he is coming to see me and not my home. I like that. No pretenses.
So off again I go to the garden, the dirt, the sun, the sky, the birds singing, the chickens clucking around me, the cats yawning in the warmth of the day. I can dream out there, I can think too.