A friend posted this on FB the other day, and I couldn't help but think of it yesterday. At church I was speaking with a young girl who had just returned home from working at camp all summer, and she asked what I did with my summer. I paused. Answering questions about how I spend my time has never been easy. I'm a caregiver, and most people have no clue as to what that entails. For various reasons, I've never felt the need to enlighten people on that. But the rest of my day, I'll share that. So I told her I've been doing a lot of yardwork and gardening. She responded, "Oh! So you've had a relaxing summer." I honestly couldn't think of a way to respond.
I have a love/hate relationship with gardening and yardwork. Since I don't work, I see no reason why I can't do as much of the yardwork as I can, and I do enjoy seeing the tangible results of what I've done. But it is buggy, and hot, and sweatty, and buggy, and sometimes downright frustrating (like when the lawnmower needs repair). Bobby does a great job of getting helpers to assist in getting all of it done, as there is NO WAY I can do all 5 acres, especially the trim work. And the garden? I do that because I enjoy knowing where my food comes from, growing foods I grew up with that I can't buy in the store, and because NOTHING tastes like a home-grown tomato. I'm also concerned that we're losing basic knowledge of how to care for ourselves, and I want to know how to feed us should that need ever arise. But gardening is sticky and itchy and painful and tiring and sweatty and buggy and WORK. I do find planting and picking relaxing, but the heat of the kitchen and the backbreaking continuous chore of weeding and dealing with bugs is anything but relaxing. I don't know if the young lady was trying to be polite or simply had no clue what gardening is about (or both), but I felt as if we were straddling two different universes. And like the photo above, it really is a matter of perspective.
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