garden magic

/ Rachel Fenton / 1 Comment

This year, we haven’t been able to give as much attention to our garden as we would have liked. Between all of the construction projects for our house, different full-time and part-time jobs, death in the family, and the demand of our adorable baby, the garden was one of the first things to fall off the priority list.

Freshly harvested cherry tomatoes

However, we did manage to get some things in the ground, and despite infrequent watering, blistering heat, and haphazard pruning, we have a small harvest. The earth’s resilience always astonishes me.

My father Jim set up an irrigation system for our small orchard and blackberry patch. It’s working well, though our elderberry bushes are still struggling and we aren’t sure why. But the trees that haven’t succumbed to pests are producing fruit.

pictured above: our pluat harvest (hybrid of plum and apricot) and two of our fruit trees

Some things we’ve left alone, like this artichoke. It will return again in the spring, and instead of enjoying it on our table, we’ll enjoy its purple bloom until it hibernates for the winter.

Watering the garden is one of the surest ways to calm Michael when he’s having a hard time (and if I’m honest, it calms me too). It’s become a morning ritual before his nap time. I wrap him close in one of my slings and wander among raised beds, hose in hand.

He gazes calmly at each plant as we pass by. I show him the different vegetables and pluck the buds from our basil to keep the leaves from turning bitter. He grabs for the water and grins when it slips through his fingers. We look for lizards sunning themselves on the side of the house, or for moths pressed against the fence.

I try to see the garden through his eyes. Too often we forget about the simple magic of a seed sprouting from soil, a little icon of resurrection.

As I walk through our wild garden, I’m reminded of the Garden of Eden and what we were made for as humans. In a way, gardening is an echo of Paradise. Yes, Creation is fallen and we struggle with weeds and pests and drought and death. But still, we work with our hands and by the grace of God, the earth provides an imperfect bounty for us.

We can focus on the shriveled vines or the overgrown tomatoes or the pest-ravaged cherry tree. If we want to look for glimpses of death, it is never far off in our broken world. But death is not the end of the story. And here, in between the sun-kissed leaves and ripening fruit, I see glimpses of Paradise.

in which stubbornness is a virtue

/ Rachel Fenton / 3 Comments

We are nothing if not a stubborn bunch. Throughout this whole process of preparing the prefab house for us to move in, my father and husband (and to some extent, my mother and I) looked at the list of tasks that needed to be done and thought: we can totally do this ourselves.

Pros: we’re saving a lot of money, and we’re learning incredible skills along the way.
Cons: we are finite human beings with a limited amount of time and energy.

I continue to be in awe of my father, Jim. He’s a retired clinical psychologist, with no formal training in any sort of contractor or construction work. And yet, so far he has managed to (with my husband Jake’s assistance):

  • Plan out and dig the trenches for both the gas and electrical that we’ll need for the house (the electrical trench just passed inspection and the gas trench is being inspected today! Praise God!)
  • Lay the wire (cable) for electric and pipe for gas
  • Wrestle the wire into the meter box and the panel (Oh, and he hung a 200 amp panel because our house came with a 100 amp one!)
  • Connect the gas line to the house and prepare it for inspection / connecting to gas by pressure testing it
  • And probably more that I’m not able to remember right now

All the hard work is paying off. We have only a handful of things left to do on our end: build the steps, finish the painting, lay the floors, install the counters, and pass all inspections. Now we are backfilling the trench, and getting ready to build the front and back porch steps.

There is much outside of our control — so I focus on what I can control. We purchased the tile for the bathrooms this weekend, and I got paint for the starry mural I have planned for Michael’s ceiling. I have been chipping away at the painting — the master bedroom wall is finished, and the kitchen needs a last touch up coat before I declare it finished. It’s encouraging to see physical glimpses of the final product: the stack of tiles in the bathroom, the color on the walls; the boxes of flooring.

Slow, steady, stubborn progress.

Speaking of…

Michael is six months old, and has inherited the family stubbornness. He has unofficially begun crawling. He alternates between an effective army crawl and a stubborn, seal-like belly flop. Both are often punctuated by a screech. We’re not sure if it’s elation or frustration, and frankly, he isn’t sure either. We were hoping he wouldn’t become mobile until our house is finished — Pennet Melangell is the opposite of baby-proof. It’s full of nooks and crannies where kids and dust bunnies can hide for ages without being found. I will definitely be kept on my toes for the near future — nothing is safe from his curious grasp.

Michael has perfected his Spider-Man stance.

We still don’t have a move-in date, and PG&E gave us the disheartening news they probably won’t be able to get to our job until late September — a whole year since we placed our work request with them.

So we’re digging in our heels against discouragement and rolling up our sleeves. There is much we can focus on, though we won’t be able to live in our house. We’ll focus on the summer and fall’s gardening and preserving, and getting the new coop ready for our chickens. As difficult as the last year of waiting has been, it has been very fruitful. It has taught all of us that stubbornness can indeed be a virtue.

Pax Christi,

Rachel

about time

/ Rachel Fenton / 1 Comment

Thy ‘today’ is eternity.

Saint Augustine

Since having a child, my experience of the passage of time has shifted. Hours have sped up; days have slowed down. Don’t ask me to accurately remember how long ago I ate breakfast: I’ll probably say an hour or so, when it’s really been four.

morning sunlight after summer rain

But what’s really struck me over the last year is the amount of time it takes to make something that’s worth making. I picked up knitting while pregnant, and continue to find solace making things with my hands in the small, in-between moments of life. I’ve made socks and sweaters and hats and shawls: and all of them took many hours to complete. I’ve also sewed a few garments, and each of those took many hours as well (It’s called “slow fashion” for a reason). Now, knowing a bit more of the process behind garment making, I pause when I see the clothes hanging at Target or H&M.

We buy items for a fraction of what it would cost to make them at a living wage. We have convenience at our fingertips: fast food, fast fashion, fast phones. We don’t think about the time that goes into the food on our table or the clothes on our bodies. And because of that, I believe we don’t think about where we’re investing our own limited, valuable time.

(I’m not going to argue that all of it’s bad and we should go back to the good ol’ Stone Age. But I do think we should pause.)

As a society, we’ve fallen out of touch with time and its value. I think social media is something that typifies this. I flinch when I see my screen time weekly usage notification. I don’t remember pouring hours into this device, and yet, those hours are gone. I can’t recall how many posts or ten-second videos I’ve scrolled through, and often I can’t remember anything I’ve read or seen when asked about it later. I’ve felt convicted to set social media aside — if not entirely, at least in part.

bees bearding on a hot day

The newest Instagram update was the nail in the coffin for me. I’ve been a steadfast lover of Instagram since 2012. But now, gone is the slow scroll and quiet images posted by friends, almost reminiscent of a personal art gallery. Now it’s frenetic, text and image and music and movement jammed in ten to twenty seconds.

As knitting and sewing (and pregnancy) have taught me, it takes time to make things that are worth making. It takes me two seconds to post on Instagram. It takes more deliberate time to craft a blog post and curate the photos I’ll put in it. So for the month of August, I’m giving up social media. At the end of the month, I’ll determine whether I’ll go back. I won’t delete my account, and I’ll pop on every now and again to check out what’s happening in the lives of my dear ones. But for now, I look forward to the slow updates and meditations I plan to post here.

a knit hat for my mother

If making my own clothes is “slow fashion”, and growing my own garden is “sustainable living”, then I’m calling this blogging endeavor of mine slow and sustainable social media. I won’t fall for the instant gratification dopamine trap of likes and endless scrolling that my brain is so prone to. Instead, I’ll hone my writing abilities while sharing the ways I encounter goodness, truth, and beauty in my quiet life.

I’m not 100% sure what that will look like on a consistent basis, but expect to see recaps of quiet weeks on the homestead, and photos of baby milestones. I also plan to post many photos of things I find beautiful, and updates on my house, projects, garden, and life in general.

If you want to join me, please send me your info: I would love to read your words and delight in what delights you.

Pax Christi,

Rachel