Rainy Day Reflections

 

    We have beautiful days like this here from time to time. Today is one of those days. Although it's an image from some time ago, it still looks almost exactly the same. I love it. Thank You God for my little sanctuary.

    It rained quite hard through the night last night and continues to come down in varying degrees today. I need to get onions, tomatoes and potatoes from the shop to cook my Swiss Chard for tonight, but if this weather holds, I'll just be eating it without those!

    Yesterday was one of those days where I had several "free" hours between Shacharit, Mincha, Ma'ariv and a couple of classes, so I went out into the garden and had a good look around. My Etrog is looking so beautiful. Thank you for the tree Aunty Patsy.

    Next, I went around the garden, harvesting various leaves to dry and make green powder with. I found Sweet Potato, Dandelion, Lemon Balm, Radish, Geranium & Nasturtium.

From this:

To this:

    I had fun. Inbetween all this, I also finished dehydrating some garlic and turning it into mostly powder but with some little lumps. I will see how I will best be able to use it. I will improve with each batch I make, hopefully. My sister in New Zealand is an expert - I should ask her for some advice.

    I also cleaned and packaged two Avo pips for germination. The Avos come from PE, from a real Avo tree that has been producing Avos-that-God-made for generations, so I decided I should have a tree or two from that stock. 

    I also have nearly 40 real Quince seeds sprouting in the fridge. I barely have space to plant one of each of these trees, never mind so many, but I thought that if we could each populate our area with original God-made fruit trees, we could help feed not only ourselves but also others. I find that not many people have this vision. How sad - to me, anyway - that it seems to be every one for himself. Would that we could behave like a community.

    I would post a pic of my soon-to-be-germinating Avo pips, but it's pretty boring - just two white balls in a plastic bag!

    I am thinking of approaching a local nursery to see if they can help me propagate these fruit trees around East London. I'm not looking for financial gain in this endeavour, I truly just want to see our area producing real fruit - nothing genetically modified or otherwise fiddled-with by man. 

    It continually amazes me that God has given me this great desire to grow food but no real place to plant the seeds! And the people who do have the space, well, they are less keen to plant anything. We are way too comfortable buying our food in boxes from the supermarket.

    My plans for today include baking a loaf of Irish Soda Bread and making some crackers to snack on later tonight. But first, I must wash the dishes!

    The day seems to be clearing so I might be able to get those veggies for my Swiss Chard after all!

May God bless you and keep you!