I get some of my best thinking done while I work in the garden, so I guess it's a good thing it is gardening season.
Even though the ratio of weeds to family members is somewhere around six trillion to one around here (and the ratio of time it takes to weed to time we have to weed is even more skewed) most of my allotted garden time has not been able to be spent on weeding. That was my plan; but my vision of certain sections of the yard becoming weed free this week changed when I saw that the sweet cherries were almost ripe and the birds were having a feast on them, one of the apple trees was excessively overburdened and needed the fruit thinned, and a hole in one of our hoses was going to keep us from being able to water everything normally.
The kids could water, but that takes a long time by hand. Still, in this heat it has to be done to save our seedlings and new plants, not to mention to prevent all our previous weeding, tilling, and planting efforts from going to waste. Whatever else I wanted the kids to get done had to take a lower rung on the priority ladder. My first priority had to be protecting the cherries from the birds. This was the first really great crop of sweet cherries this tree has produced after years of caring for it to overcome pest problems. (Last year was the first crop to speak of, but someone stole the cherries in the middle of the night while I waited one more day to pick for extra sweetness.) You can imagine how badly I want to harvest these cherries!
The thinning of the apples is a long, painful process. I suspect I'll be at it for weeks with four apple trees and only an hour or so a day to work on it. I hate it, because it does pain me to cut off any developing fruit and throw it away, even though somewhere in my brain I know it is necessary. I am thankful for the task, however, because it forces me to revisit previous lessons learned.
I've never had to thin apples so extensively before so I watched some video tutorials to make sure I would do it right. I learned that each cluster of apples needs to be thinned down to one apple, usually the "king fruit." This is the painful part of the process because a cluster can contain anywhere from two to six apples, depending on how many blossoms were pollinated (or survived a freeze). The king fruit is the largest of the pollinated apples in a cluster, having grown bigger because it was pollinated first. If you want large apples, this is the one you leave because it will always be the biggest of the bunch as the others cannot catch up to it. I like it when there is very obviously a king fruit and the others just aren't as developed; it makes it a little bit easier to let them go. But more often than I'd like, all the apples are the same size and it becomes a matter of evaluating position to other clusters to balance weight and room to grow, or a matter of finding the one that is the most perfect (no blemishes or bruising from banging in the wind).
New thoughts have emerged as I've thinned fruit this week and they are possibly very insightful. As I have pruned and thinned, I've had images of paper piles and boxes of "stuff" in my house that I keep meaning to thin out and organize but never seem to get to, mostly because of feeling overwhelmed. I've thought of the busy-ness of my schedule and the people and relationships that I sometimes don't spend enough time on because I often approach my time like I would an overstuffed suitcase, cramming and cramming and then just sitting on it and wishing it all to fit. Looking at these clusters of apples still to thin and the buckets of them destined for the compost pile, I've thought that I need to learn from the numbers of my apple tree: I need to thin the stuff and distractions and demands of my life by 50% to 80%. Those are crazy numbers! It seems improbable, impractical and, of course, impossible. But the visual of just 50% of the clutter being gone...! It's at least a concrete goal I can work toward instead of an ethereal, eternal "not sure." If I stick to the example of king fruits and analyze the juxtaposition of everything on my branches, I should do alright.
I've also thought a lot about all the homeschooling moms I've heard from lately who aren't sure how lists and schedules and plans can coexist with reality. I think my garden experience makes for a perfect analogy to help guide all moms.
New thoughts have emerged as I've thinned fruit this week and they are possibly very insightful. As I have pruned and thinned, I've had images of paper piles and boxes of "stuff" in my house that I keep meaning to thin out and organize but never seem to get to, mostly because of feeling overwhelmed. I've thought of the busy-ness of my schedule and the people and relationships that I sometimes don't spend enough time on because I often approach my time like I would an overstuffed suitcase, cramming and cramming and then just sitting on it and wishing it all to fit. Looking at these clusters of apples still to thin and the buckets of them destined for the compost pile, I've thought that I need to learn from the numbers of my apple tree: I need to thin the stuff and distractions and demands of my life by 50% to 80%. Those are crazy numbers! It seems improbable, impractical and, of course, impossible. But the visual of just 50% of the clutter being gone...! It's at least a concrete goal I can work toward instead of an ethereal, eternal "not sure." If I stick to the example of king fruits and analyze the juxtaposition of everything on my branches, I should do alright.
I've also thought a lot about all the homeschooling moms I've heard from lately who aren't sure how lists and schedules and plans can coexist with reality. I think my garden experience makes for a perfect analogy to help guide all moms.
My list of things to do each day this week included garden time. I had very specific things that I meant to get done, mostly weeding. But when I got to the garden, I found that I needed to protect the cherry tree, thin the apples, and water by hand. I had to do what needed to be done first. Did I get the whole yard or even the garden weeded as planned? No. But I did do what needed done the most, and I did spend time in garden as I had planned.
What if the time I've set aside for a particular lesson or activity gets robbed by something like two kids fighting with each other? Do I forge ahead with the lesson, pushing, pulling, forcing, perhaps even fighting myself because that is the plan? Or do I stop, set the planned lesson aside for the time being, get to the heart of the kids' problem, and teach perhaps more important lessons relating to love, manners, behavior, responsibility, or whatever the need is? Then, when it is resolved, do we move on to next thing on our schedule, leaving the missed planned lesson undone, or do we stay and finish job? Answers here will vary, even for me depending on day, but the point is that the reality of parenting and homeschooling is that we are dealing with living, growing, changing beings, who think and act and react, not black and white checklists. A gardener must work with and around the weather, growing conditions, equipment failures, pest problems, etc. Moms do, too.
What if tomorrow, when I go back outside, I see that all we did today is ineffective or undone. What if the nets on my cherry tree, after hours of wrapping and stretching and tying today, have come undone? Do I lament and give up the cherries? Or do I do it all over again even though that's one more day I don't get to the weeds? I want those cherries! I want the harvest!
What if you spend a day or a week teaching a math or science or phonics concept and now your schedule says it is time to move on to the next thing, but you realize that your child just isn't getting it? Do you advance, advance and hope it will resolve somehow? Are you teaching a lesson, or teaching a child?
As good as it feels to check boxes or cross things off lists, that is not what is important. It's the progress, the becoming, the continued forward motion that matters. My cherries and apples can still be harvested even if I don't have a completely weed-free picture perfect garden, but they cannot be if I don't take care of first things first. Like the garden, in homeschooling it is the fruit that matters.
Lunch today took three times longer than I planned, and we didn't get to everything on my list, but I loved it. Why? The kids were really getting along, having a great, fun conversation, enjoying being together standing around griddle while I cooked crepes. I had doubled the recipe so I would have some for another day, but they all got eaten. It doesn't matter. The relationships being strengthened at that moment were more necessary--and fruitful--than anything else on my list (or having to make crepes again the next time).
On a school day I may set aside 15 minutes for recess, but when I see two kids who normally fight with each other getting along beautifully, I don't interrupt! The math isn't going anywhere and can be done at another point in the day. It will still get done. The most needful thing at that moment is already happening.
All of this is to say, most of us need to thin some things out of our lives, whether it's stuff, list items, or unrealistic expectations of ourselves and our kids. Don't give up having a plan or a frameworked schedule, but don't be so checklist oriented that you can't see what's working and enjoy the moment. I fervently believe that God put things like gardens in our paths to teach us important lessons. Find the king fruit in your life, which I would suggest is marriage, children, and your values, and put first things first so you can look forward to the harvest.
