Living Our Lives Well

Featured Garden - Our Hoops Loop Garden

Welcome to our home! We built our house in the spring and summer of 2012, and though it wasn't finished, we moved in late in October 2012. Every year we've managed to get a little more done on the yard, but I can never seem to get ahead of the quack grass and weeds. I've resigned myself to the fact that as much as I love flowers, I'm a really lousy gardener! It makes me realize just how much time and effort my parents put into their garden at the farm. (The Garden of Ede'n Gerald)
I'm sure people thought we were crazy, but while we were still building the house, we took some time to landscape the front yard, and plant this False Spirea hedge. Clearly, it loves the sand here! It just keeps spreading and producing suckers for me to transplant to other parts of the yard. I'm so glad we took the time to plant it. I love the way it encloses our front patio.
So many of the perennials that we brought from our home near Portage La Prairie, didn't survive the move. I'm excited about any plant that can survive our little piece of desert!

This photo was taken last year, but it shows the patio behind the hedge.

Every year, my husband, Brian, plants Geraniums, in memory of his mother, Alice Bolack. One day, I'll scan some old photos and post Alice's garden here.

I'm cheating here...this photo is from 2013. I wanted to show my Daylilies, but don't have a good picture....translation- they're now full of quack grass!

These next photos are of the back yard.

This stump is from a cottonwood tree, and was brought with us from our previous home. Along with the perennials around it, we apparently brought two little maple trees that are doing great. We dare not move them, because they're sure to die if we do!

Because we have very few trees on our property, there is no shelter from the wind, so we decided to fence part of our back yard, creating 'rooms'. We used pallets, moving crates, and wire for much of the fencing. We got some Virginia Creepy cuttings from a neighbour three years ago, and planted along this fence and trellis. With all the rain we've had this year, it has really taken off.

These irises are in the flower bed near the hedge at the front, and were some of my first blooms this spring.

This spring, we built a raised planter along the pergola to enclose the patio. We've tried a few times to get grape vines growing but most of them didn't make it. We're hoping they will do better in the planter. When this photo was taken we hadn't yet put up the wire for the vines to climb. One day, we hope to see the pergola covered in vines!

This patio was one of our projects for this summer. We started with patio blocks, and then Brian found us some bricks to finish off under the deck.

We needed hand rails for the steps, but Brian couldn't just put a simple rail up...he created this beautiful planter for me! All that's left to do, is the cap around the edge.

And this is the pergola wall with the wire installed. So far, the grape vines are loving it!

In the background, you can see a bit of our daughter's playhouse...another work in progress!

Still very much a work in progress, but I hope you enjoyed this little peak at my yard and garden.

Manitoba Wild Flowers

Linking at Wildflower Wednesday

Our home is located on 5 acres near Shilo, Manitoba. There really is no topsoil, other than what might be caught in the vegetation that grows here...but remove that prairie grass and ground cedar, and we're left with beautiful, pure yellow sand...perfect for a sandbox! I cringe every time I see a neighbour plowing up their land, knowing I'm soon going to watch it blow away.

When we moved here four years ago, we brought dozens of perennials with us, but only a handful have survived. Fortunately, I've realized that I wasn't born with my parents' green thumbs, so I'm content with the few perennials I have, and I fill up planters with annuals.

What we do have here is an abundance of beautiful wild flowers. They thrive in our sandy soil, and from spring through fall, the flowers are always changing.

All of these photos were taken on our property. Just some of the many wild flowers that grow here...along with the cactus, prairie grass, ground cedar, and what most people might call weeds. The flowers change with the seasons; these are just some of the flowers that cover our property in the late summer and fall.

Goldenrod grows all over our acreage.

Black Eyed Susans and goldenrod growing through a pallet.

Black Eyed Susan

Gaillardia

Cactus

Liatris and Goldenrod

Hairy Prairie Clover?

I love all of the wild flowers that grow out here,

but I'm not sure of the names of many of them.

This book is on my wishlist!

So This Is What Surrender Looks Like

Recently, a visiting missionary repeated something he had heard someone else say,

"Just get up every morning, and do what you have to do."

Pretty simple, right? It really is a very simple statement, but when you think about it, it truly is the essence of living the Christian life, and it was something I needed to hear.

At the beginning of every year, I choose a verse for the year.

My yearly verse can usually be summed up in one word. For 2016, I chose Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.....and the word surrender is what came to mind. At the time, I had no idea how that word would manifest itself in my life. I knew it wasn't something I could force or resolve to make happen, but I claimed it as my word for the year and left it in God's hands to work out the details. Many times in the past few months, I've thought about that word, and have to admit, I was wondering if I had the right word!

Maybe a little update on my life is in order...

My husband and I are both 58 years old, parents of eight children, and sixteen grandchildren. Five of our children came by way of adoption, and three are still at home. We are in our 29th year of homeschooling, and our youngest daughter is nine years old, so we have eight years of school left. Brian has often joked that our pension and the child tax benefit will overlap for about a year. Still, with each year that Danica gets older, I've enjoyed a little more freedom, and I've been looking forward to a new chapter in life.

Then came June, and circumstances changed. One of our adult sons moved back home, and with him came a sweet pink bundle...grandchild # 16. I commented to someone....more than once...."I was seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, and someone just rolled a boulder across it for the foreseeable future." As much as I love my granddaughter, I really had been enjoying my bit of freedom. After thirty-eight years of parenting, I wasn't the least bit interested jumping back into caring for a baby. Anyone who has followed my blog over the years will find it hard to believe that I didn't jump for joy over the prospect of a new little one in our home.

Enter the visiting missionary, and his very simple statement, "Just get up every morning and do what you have to do." As I thought about that statement, a lot of things came to my mind....but mainly, the question,

"What has God called me to do?"

Because ultimately, that is what I need to do...Get up every morning and do what God has for me to do. In my Bible, I have a piece of paper dated, February 28, 2007, with these words written on it, "Not My Will, But Thine Lord." I won't go into the story behind those words. No matter what the circumstances, those words are always the answer, and this time was no different. I didn't have to think long to be reminded of what I know God has called me to do. In fact, when I asked my husband that same question later that day, he didn't even hesitate with his answer, "Take care of kids." Yup, that's it....the thing that God has shown me over and over, the thing that he gave me to do when he gave me the desires of my heart. Not something that I could just quit when I got tired, or when things got hard....and believe me, there have been some extremely hard days! No, this calling isn't something that I can just say, "Okay God, it's been great...thank you for answering my prayer and blessing me with this big family, but I'm done now...I want to do something else...maybe some Me time!" Not that it's wrong to take time for myself, but this is the life that I asked God for, and this is the life that he has called me to. My life is not my own; it's bought with a price...Not my will, but thine Lord. I realized then that at this moment in time, what I need to do is help my son care for his little girl. It won't be forever, it may not be very long at all, but for now, it's what God is asking me to do. And as I've said to my husband before, " What do you do when a baby is dropped on you? You catch it!"

And then I had that "Uh huh!" moment.

So this is what surrender looks like...

Surrender is setting aside my desires, and my plans and just getting up every morning and doing what I need to do. The moment I got that, life became sweet again....and that little pink bundle is a big part of that sweetness!

Thank you, Lord for working your will and your way in my life in the most unexpected ways.

A song that I wrote for my sister, Victoria, comes to mind...who knew it would one day be for me?