Watered Garden

I am so looking forward to next spring. In about a year I will really retire as we will be debt free. We had a good season here, but it could be even better if I didn't spend the precious morning hours in front of a monitor! I had a foster kid once who was not afraid of fire ants and had very steady hands. He would get a few of them to crawl up his fingers, then walk carefully across the yard and toss them into the web of a giant "writing" spider that had made its home in our shrubbery. I asked him what he was doing, and he simply wanted to see whose poison was the strongest. (I think the spider won; it had the added advantage of spinning a cocoon around its prey). Shiver shiver! I have five tomato plants in flower beds around the house. Three of them have made themselves into shrubs and have to be suckered a couple of times a week, but they are also making me a huge number of paste (Roma) tomatoes, which make the most awesome tomato sauce! It's cooler here now, and we have been taking them off the vine as soon as they become a little pink and letting them ripen in the sun on the south side of the porch. The house smells like tomatoes most of the time, even now! WG

HB from WG!

I do think that a lot of "church people" hesitate to get professional help. I don't know whether it's "that the ministry be not blamed" or they just think they should be above needing secular, professional help with a problem, be it in the sexual, financial or whatever category. But in the case of the minister, I make no excuses, accept no excuses, and have no empathy or sympathy whatsoever for this guy. I hope he's enjoying prison. He plea bargained and only got 8 years. That way she didn't have to testify against him. He apologized to a lot of people at the hearing, but not the church he wrecked. Not us. WG

That also touches on the assumption that all men who become ministers are called by God? Reminds me of an old story my dad used to tell: A farmer was out plowing his fields one day. He had tried wheat, soybeans, sorghum, and other crops to no avail; he was a lousy farmer and just didn't know what to do with his life. "God!" He cried out, "every crop I plant either dries up in the field or never even comes up at all! I'm a failure at farming! What am I to do?" A cloud came rushing up, blotting out the sun. A giant arm reaches out of the cloud and writes two initials in the air: P. C. The farmer stares in wonder. "P. C.! Preach Christ!" So he sells the farm and goes about the world, preaching Christ. He has very few converts and a whole lot of trouble. At the end of his life when he stands before God, he asks about this: "Why did you send me to preach Christ and then let me have a miserable time doing it?" "You ninny!" says God. "You asked Me what to do about farming. P. C. stood for Plant Corn!" The moral, I guess, is that a lot more people think they are called to preach than actually are. A sad situation in a former church plant involved a minister, a pretty good preacher, who had sex with a 15-year-old girl and is now rightfully imprisoned. Was he tempted beyond bearing? His wife had certainly not "let herself go" as Mr. Dr**coll suggests is usually the case, and no one would have guessed from his demeanor that he would dream of doing such a thing. Do we blame the 15-year-old? She didn't seem particularly seductive to me. It is a sad, sad situation that wrecked several lives and hurt a lot more people than him, his victim, and his family. It destroyed a church and opened the door for some very dangerous doctrine to be preached to those who were left. WG

Okay, I can accept that explanation. I once took a class taught by a minister and his wife. They had had difficulties and eventually he learned that it was because she had been repeatedly sexually abused as a child. It took years of therapy, love, and understanding to unravel all this and heal the damage. But this guy did the right thing; he address her issues, not his wants and needs. That is the sacrificial love husbands are supposed to have for their wives and I was just moved to tears by their story. And then, of course, they turned right around and starting helping others! WG

So then it's still the woman's fault????? Women are just sex machines? WG

Let me start with a disclaimer: I AM NOT ADVOCATING THE BELOW ERRANT, HARDHEARTED, MEAN, NASTY, HATEFUL ATTITUDE AT ALL. I am merely posting this because it is an attitude that is way, way, way too pervasive in the world today, and I think needs to be addressed, brought out in the open so's it will scurry away like bugs under an upturned rock. You can find it easily on the internet but when T*d Ha**ard was caught with a young male prostitute, the West Coast Wonder, M**k Dr**col, wrote in his blog that "Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives. At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastors' wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband's sin, but she may not be helping him either." He later posted an apology and explanation after widespread protests. [14] (from Wikipedia)(but it's all over the internet) This is the attitude that really gets me fired up like an Atlas booster rocket; and I don't think this overrated blowhard is alone in his errant thinking, either. Thank God for women like the author of this book who have the courage to speak up. God does indeed apply His laws to all of us, male or female.

Shellon, thanks for posting this. I like the way she places the responsibility for the most part where it belongs with the man and the "other woman." So many times people say it's all the wife's fault, she's not "keeping herself up" or she argues with him or something. Men just like women vow a vow to GOD to be faithful to their wives. It may be a challenge to keep that vow sometimes, but it's still a vow before God. It really ticks me off when I see a young woman work her rear end off to support her husband in his youth only to be dumped and replaced by a younger woman when her husband, who has climbed the ladder of success on her back, thinks better things are coming his way. WG

Wish I'd known about the onions and fire ants when we lived in SC! Seems Sprout when a lad new to the area thought it was fun to gather up fistfuls of dust and throw them up into the air. Unfortunately, he ripped the roof off a fire ant condo one time. No more dust bowls for that kid! They were such a scourge in Charleston. Best remedy I heard there was to ram a broom handle down the middle of the hill, pour in gasoline, and throw a match as you hastened away. Allegedly if you did it frequently enough you could end up getting down to the queen and killing the colony. Or else just bug the daylights out of them until they moved lock, stock and barrel to the neighbor's yard. WG

I just have to tell you I laughed my anatomy off hearing this! Thanks! WG

Welcome!

Yeah, I know...one of my first, weird thoughts on seeing the TV at the Nurses's Station was Bugs Bunny saying "you realize of course that this means war!" WG

Thank you. I was at The James Cancer Hospital with my mother-in-law, who had a followup appointment there. She was pretty unaware of the magnitude of what had happened. I was disbelieving until I called Mr. Garden at home and found him in tears. WG

If I wore stuff like that I'd want to keep it a secret, too!

there are programs to reimburse primary care physicians in undeserved areas. But even then the physician could make more $$$$ by not doing that program and going somewhere else, or specializing. The shortage is also due to the need for more qualified medical schools. Less than half of those willing and able to become doctors get the opportunity. (There's also the military doctor route). One suggestion I have heard that makes sense is to use Certified Nurse Practitioners in primary care clinics. These individuals are highly trained; many of them even specialize. They can handle routine matters, such as earaches, minor wounds, vaccinations, etc. and check with a doctor for the big stuff. Rural or urban clinics with a PCP or two who do "circuit-riding" duty to help pay off their school loans would help. I'd rather see my money go to a system like that. And of course, I do have a personal stake in this, I'm concerned about the suggestions to cut Medicare costs by say, refusing to pay for treatment that is expensive for cancer and heart disease. Or, as Richard Lamm, former governor of Colorado stated it, do elderly people, 65+ have a "duty to die" to save money for the government? WG

I was just green bean crazy this year! Want to plant twice as many next year. The new variety (to us) Tenderette was awesome! WG

Looking back over my adult life, I think I've been the ideal target for bullying, especially the more subtle kind that slowly eats away at my self-esteem until I will do ANYTHING to get the abuse to stop. At least, until we were told to "get rid of" our son. The bullying stopped there. Now, especially after severing ourselves from the latest church plant disaster, I can smell a load of theological BS 320 miles away and I am very, very cautious about involvement in any church, ministry, or anything else. I know what's right for me and that is what I will pursue. WG

Went to tear out the tomato vines and realized we are going to be canning one more batch! Those things just won't give up! WG

HI right back atcha! Glad to hear you're doing well! WG

Jeesh! This always bugs the snot out of me. Cancer is about 600 different diseases with about as many causes. Some are caused by just, well, we don't know, some are genetic, at least one is actually viral (Burkitt's lymphoma).(sp?) I worked for 9 years in a cancer hospital, and trust me, cancer patients are patients, not possessed. Some of the bravest, funniest, most inspirational people I will ever know I met working there. God bless them every one! I'm so sorry for all y'all went through with that bunch of uneducated zombies. It's bad enough to have something scary like cancer without having to put up with their ignorance. WG

Is that that disease the talking heads mentioned that was similar to potato blight? I'm sorry for your loss. Perhaps plant in a different location next spring, would be my only suggestion. WG

"ignite" is spelled wrong in the middle of the page. WG, the spelling police

GC, exactly what problems were you having with your tomatoes? I probably just forgot or looked in the wrong place. Did you have the soil tested? Did you get some loathsome disease on them? WG

Anybody who has ever lived in the Carolinas surely remembers kudzu. It is a large leaved vine imported from China by some fellow who thought it would make excellent cattle fodder. Kudzu can grow a foot or so overnight and will simply drape itself over any inanimate object, abandoned house, fence row, dead tree, rusted out car, whatever. It is one of the scariest things I've ever seen, kind of like a science fiction visitor from outer space. Of course it grows out in the boonies for now, but who knows, somebody it may well swallow downtown Raleigh! WG