day trips

Just wanted to throw it out there ... day trips are totally under-rated & need to be taken more seriously, & enjoyed more frequently! They are treated like the red-headed step child of weekend/week long backpacking trips, & are generally neglected. Even sometimes given a bad wrap.

Mere is done teaching for the year tomorrow!... So day trips are in store!

Little River Canyon? - Check
Sipsey? - Check
Desoto Falls? - Check
Cheaha? - Check
Locust Fork? - Check

Shall I go on? Those are just a few places I want to take her! I cant wait!

Day trip, I salute you & look forward to our coming days together!

I am sure there'll be some pics to go along with some hopefully awesome stories!

Past

I am very mindful today, that when the past haunts, all we have - for those who have found their all-in-all and their certain, unwavering hope in Jesus Christ as Lord & Savior - is the hope of tomorrow, the hope of a future, & the hope of eternity where all faces, long streaked with tears, are forever tear-free & all the entangling aches & pains of yesterday are totally erased because all that will be before us is the glory of Christ Jesus, fully revealed in complete & full glory!

The pain of the past drives me to the foot of the cross of Christ, where all my hopes are (& must continually be), because as the pain of the past reminds me, I am a very fallen, desperate man capable of great sins, & therefore in need of a greater Savior! Thus, the Good News is the Gospel, because Jesus' capacity to forgive is greater than my capacity to sin - past, present, or future!

And so, as I consider the past, pushing on for today & tomorrow, in the words of the Avett Brothers, "Maybe I don't have to be good but I can try to be at least a little better than I've been so far" ... with the idea that the Christian life is not one of absolute perfection, although that is the desired end, but today & tomorrow are holy direction, not holy perfection. I am mindful of Paul's exhortation to push on past what is behind, striving to lay hold of whats ahead, "forgetting what lies behind & straining forward to what lies ahead."

Christ lies ahead! My eyes, my hopes are set on Him alone.

El Jardin {parte dos}

The garden is slow to show lots of progress. Here is a bit of a check list...

El jardin es lenta para mostrar el progresso. Pero, aqui esta un lista de las vegetales con el progresso.

Our first radish!

• Radishes/Rabano: great, almost ready to harvest {son bueno, casi lista para cosechar}.
• Green beans/Frijoles verde: look good & are growing, no beans yet {estan creciendo, no hay frijloes todavia}.
• Summer squash/Calabaza {?}: a degree of yellowing , but we're working on that, no fruit yet {esta amarillo, no hay frutas ahora}.
• Basil & Cilantro/Albaca y Culantro: these were both re-sown, they are coming up prolifically now {los dos se volvieron a sembrar, hay un montone de estos}!
• Green onions/Cebollas verde: initially we sowed these & transplanted them ({hey're so delicate/estan muy delicado}. Meredith & I sowed more in a permanent spot in the garden {al principo sebramos estos y transplantarlas, hemos sembrado más de un lugar permanente en el jardín}.
• Tomatoes/Los tomates: our original round of tomatoes just kind of crapped out {both those we transplanted & those we did not}. go figure. we re-sowed these as well  I guess we'll let them mature a bit more before we transplant them this time {los primeros tomates no son buenos, volvemos a la sembro tambien}.
• Okra/Okra: its just kind of there. not much growth {simlpemente, estan alli, no un crecimiento mucho}.
• Watermelon/Sandia: I need to dig & prep a hole outside of the garden to provide it adequate space to grow down the hill. we have two watermelon plants {necesito excavar un hueco afuera del jardin, porque sandia necesita una grad cantidad de espacio. tenemos dos}.
• Carrots/Zanahorias: we just did not sow enough to begin with, so we sowed a lot ... should have lots of carrots {no tenemos muchas, entonces vamos a sembrar muchas mas}.
• Peppers/Pimientos: we have a mystery hot pepper {3 of them}, jalapenos & bell peppers ... they're all a bit slow, but I think they'll pick up {tenemos una misterio pimiento picante, jalapenos, y pimientos dulce. son lentos ahora}.
• Cantaloupe/Melon{?}: it did not even germinate, we sowed again {que no germinaron! hemos sembrado mas}.
• Spinach & Lettuce/Espinaca y Lechuga: our spinach looks puny, we sowed more. the bibb lettuce & butterhead are struggling. we sowed more {es insignificante. son luchando. y uno tiempo mas, hemos sembrado mas de los dos.

That's what we have thus far. Here are some pictures. Enjoy! ...

Que es lo que tenemos en este momento. Aqui hay algunas fotos. Disfruta amigos!...

All our radishes!

Ready for harvest!!!

Cilantro seedlings.

Basil!

Green beans, lettuce & broccoli.

All the re-sown seeds!!!

Also, I think we are about to try our hand at strawberries. The plan is to take small plastic buckets, drill holes in the side, all around, fill it with soil, and plant the strawberries all around the outside of the bucket ... and as they grow they can just hang off the side for us to harvest them. Once these get going there will be pictures! I am excited about the potential, if the birds dont eat all of the buds (like last year)!

Tambien, pienso que nosotros tratamos producir las fresas. El plan es tomar cubos pequenos, con huecos en el lado, llebar con tierra, y plantar las fresas en el cubo. Entonces, cuando que crecer vamos a recogerlas.

Lastly, to my spanish speaking friends ... please let me know how my spanish is throughout this post. I did most of it myself, only using a translation aid for my lack of vocab. All the grammar is basically my own doing! So...let me know! Thanks!

Finalmente, para mis amigos que hablan espanol, por favor hagamelo saber como mi espanol en este post. Muchas gracias!