What's under YOUR grow light? ;-)

Do you know what’s more fun than growing weed in your basement?

Heirloom tomatoes!

Why? Because

A.  they’re  legal

and B.

Instead of  only being able to choose from a dozen  varieties at your local garden center, you can choose from several hundred  different varieties of tomatoes.

In  March I started two trays of Brandy wine’s  in our basement:

Brandy wine tomatoes @ 8 weeks.

My Mom reminded me a couple of weeks ago  to set them out  a few hours  a day, a  couple of weeks before   sticking them in the ground.

(The process is called “hardening”)

Different gardeners use different technique but basically, the idea is to introduce  your young plants  to the forces of nature gradually.

…if you don’t, the first good wind and they’ll all snap off.

I set them on the east side of our house, next to the compost pile.  It’s kind of sheltered there and out of direct sun light.

They were still  pretty beat up by the end of the first day.

I  put them back  under the grow light, and within a couple of days, they  started to recover.

It reminded me of a true story I’d read about  few years ago.  The mature trees in an arboretum  mysteriously began falling over.  What they eventually discovered was this….because the trees had grown up inside, in such a sheltered environment,  they had never experienced adversity.  As they matured, the cell structure in the trees was so weak they collapsed under their own weight.

I’ve been thinking about that all day today.

The  relationship between adversity and personal growth.

As much as I hate adversity, I know  that a certain amount of it can actually be good for me.

Right now, I’m roofing a 2 story farm-house.

At the end of the day I come home mentally exhausted.

I am  responsible  not only for my own  safety, but the safety of two other men.

We are installing a new type of metal roof.

So in addition to  safety concerns, I’m also dealing with a learning curve.

(At the end of the day, that roof better not leak, or you know who’s phone is going to be ringing the first time it rains….)

Did I mention, I hate heights

Yep, a carpenter who hates heights…go figure….

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Went to a walk-a-thon 3 weeks ago for our grandson Rigg.   One of the disabilities he has been identified with is Angelman’s Syndrome.

My daughter deals with adversity and stress    24/7

One of the songs playing  in the back ground at the walk-a-thon was a song by Kelly Clarkson…..

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…”

When I was watching that video tonight.  it reminded me of one of my blogging friends

If you’ve been a reader here for any length of time, you know one of my few pet peeves is  religious people who spew out “trite platitudes”

If you ever see me in a receiving line at a funeral home..I want to warn you in advance..don’t..and I repeat, don’t  mumble some trite platitude to comfort me.

It won’t be pretty.

I say that here because undoubtedly someone at some point, is going to read this post and think I’m spouting off simplistic trite platitudes in response to the  adversity and suffering life can sometimes dish out.

Not on your life.

Some of the tomatoes I started out with  didn’t make it.

Others are still alive..

barely….

Here are some pictures of the ones  still standing  tonight:

Brandy wine tomato thick and healthy stalk  starting to bloom

Notice how robust that stem is

Down but not out

Broken and starting over

As always, thanks for taking the time to read my “stuff”   DM

Some of last years crop

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Tags: attitude, Christianity, depression, endurance, faith, gardening, house church, Life, spirituality, suffering, thoughts