We Grow Tomatoes in the Landscape

Several years ago I had a mentor whom had recently been through some pretty stressful life events.  Her husband, in an attempt to protect her somewhat fragile state, banned her from planting a garden that year.  She sort of fell in line but thoughts of no summer tomatoes or squash were too much so she stuck a few contraband plants in the landscape.  I learned well.  This is Fred....

Fred is a tomato plant. He grows happily in a whiskey barrel between my roses. we were calling him Henry, but as we have a new nephew by that name, decided to try something else.

It has been a challenging summer.  There have been great highlights.....

Like Lucy riding the tube for the first time and Brianna having the strength to as well.

Cheer clinics with UK cheerleaders and amazing new tumbling skills. Hadley making the Total Cheer Platinum team.

Bible school.

Mammoth Cave

 And ...Church Camp.  I am pretty sure the answer to disagreements within the church is hunting down fellow church members with bazooka balls. 

But there have also been some pretty low moments.  Moments you can't share pictures of because they are so dark, so unexplainable. When 3 days a week of therapy in Nashville began to take their toll.  Days when we wanted to take a break from food for just a moment but couldn't.  Days when Lucy needed so much more than we could provide.  Medicine changes that were crushing to adjust to. Never ending math problems to try and get Brianna through 7th grade before 8th grade started. Drought and high corn prices and crashing cattle markets. Exhaustion. So..... What do you do when life feels like you are living in the compost heap????

You take advice from another out of place plant.  My carefully planted, in just the right spot, fruit trees didn't make it, but this little sucker that grew on his own from a thrown out peach pit in a pile of dead grass, manure and food scraps decided to bloom where he landed... literally. It took the mess around it and is springing forth with life abundant.