Last week it finally began to feel like spring was taking hold. The nights were chilly, but the days were mostly mild. We had rain midweek and even a thunderstorm. Later in the week with the full moon, we had a cold snap and some frost, which is usual for spring.
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| A sunrise last week. |
I was only in school on Monday last week. It was a short week as we went into Easter break. On Monday after school I spent an hour out in the big garden with Kurt talking over plans and projects. That afternoon my onion order came in the mail, six bundles of seventy-five starts each of three different varieties – Walla Walla, Patterson, and Redwing.
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| The onion oder. |
I spent all day on Tuesday doing spring cleaning in preparation for Passover and Easter. My favorite way to clean the house is to put on a long queue of big band music and take one room at a time starting downstairs. I began with my bedroom and then moved on to the living room and music room. Next, I scrubbed the downstairs bathroom and dusted and swept out the dining room. I didn’t clean the kitchen. Stacey had already done some work there last week and Miriam was working in there all day, so I kept out. It was a sunny day and 65°, so I opened doors and windows to get some fresh air into the house. Then I moved to the outer parts of the house. I swept the front porch and put away the snow shovel and bucket of salt in a gesture of defiance and hope. I cleaned the back porch and got it ready to receive the potted plants that spent the winter indoors. Then I tackled the woodshed.
The woodshed is the place where things that we don’t want to deal with get dumped all winter. I try to keep on top of it through the cold months, but it’s difficult. But I needed to set up my growing station on the workbench, so I couldn’t put it off any longer. I hauled every portable item out onto the front lawn and then sorted it into three piles – keep, give away, throw away. Then the items to keep went back in. I bagged up the give away items to take to the thrift store. And the throw away items went either into trash bags or to the burn pile out on the edge of the orchard. Having done that, I set up my growing station. I put down seed tray heating mats. I set up the electric heater. I sorted through seed trays, selecting the sturdiest to keep and sent the rest to be recycled. When I was done, I felt a great sense of accomplishment.
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| My seed growing station in the woodshed. |
By then, it had warmed up nicely outdoors and I took a break from spring cleaning to do some garden work. I’ve had hardy kiwi vines (Actinidia arguta and Actinidia. kolomikta) growing on a rather ugly trellis for six or seven years. They haven’t been very successful so far. I did a little research and found that my trellis is not the sort they like and I’ve been pruning them incorrectly. Actually, I hadn’t pruned them at all. So Tuesday afternoon I untangled the vines and began dismantling the trellis. It was harder work than I anticipated. The vines were tightly wrapped around the trellis wires and there were a lot of dead vines among the living ones. In untangling them, I managed to slice my fingers open on sharp wire tips. I still haven’t finished. The screws holding the trellis together are rusted and stripped. I’ll work on it more this week.
While I worked through the day, Miriam was busy in the kitchen. She made almond bread, macaroons, angel food cake, and more chocolate Easter eggs. Our food preparations continued through the week. I made a batch of pickled eggs on Wednesday morning and Miriam made her usual weekly batch of sourdough bread. On Thursday she made pound cake.
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| Miriam's day in the kitchen. |
With this spell of mild weather, the amphibian world has stirred to life. On Monday evening we heard peepers singing from the beaver pond for the first time – one of the happiest sounds I know of. By midweek their nightly chorus was loud and lovely. On Monday Miriam also reported hearing amorous toads in the lily pond at night. Her bedroom is closest to the pond. On Tuesday we found two clumps of toad eggs that will soon become tadpoles.
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| Toad eggs in the lily pond. |
The garden of 2023 is now officially underway. My order of seed potatoes arrived on Wednesday and I set them out to chit by the back porch windows. On Thursday I started the first of my seed trays. I planted sweet peas, carnations, cornflowers, and cleome – all flowers that need a good head start in order to bloom when they should. Next week I’ll start more seed trays, mostly vegetables. Out in the raised beds in the small vegetable garden, I planted spinach and lettuce seeds, both of them crops that like cooler weather. It is balm to my soul to be working with seeds and soil again.
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| Potatoes chitting on the back porch. |
With warmer weather and some rain, the flower beds have exploded with life. The snowdrops and some of the crocuses are past their prime now, but other flowers are just starting. It seems like overnight the chionodoxa and corydalis burst into bloom. The hyacinth buds shot up and will open any day now. And the first of the daffodils, the tiny tete-a-tetes, have opened. The rhubarb has sent up its red knobby leaf buds. I love the suddenness of it all. And there’s so much more to come.
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| Chionodoxa. |
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| Corydalis. |
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| Rhubarb. |
On Good Friday morning I listened of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion. I listened, or rather watched, the excellent performance by the Netherlands Bach Society on YouTube. I followed along with a text that had the original German and an English translation. I wish my German was good enough not to need a translation, but it isn’t. It was a wonderful and moving experience. I could tell as I immersed myself in the music that Bach had a deep testimony of the divinity of Christ. His setting of Matthew’s account of the Passion is a masterpiece, the greatest work of sacred music ever created by mankind, I think. If it’s possible to single out any portions of it as my favorite parts, I’d have to say they are the two arias when the alto sings Erbarme dich, at the point where Peter has just denied knowing Christ for the third time:
Mein Gott, um meiner Zähren willen! My God, for the sake of my tears!
Schaue hier, Look here,
Herz und Auge weint vor dir Heart and eye weep before you
Bitterlich. Bitterly.
and when the bass sings Mache dich, mein Herze rein, just after Joseph of Arimathea has begged the crucified body of Christ from Pilate:
Ich will Jesum selbst begraben. I want to bury Jesus myself.
Denn er soll nunmehr in mir Because he should now be in me
Für und für For and for
Seine süße Ruhe haben. have his sweet rest.
Welt, geh aus, laß Jesum ein! World, go out, let Jesus in!
Throughout the day on Friday we made our final preparations for our Passover Seder. Passover actually began on Wednesday night at sundown, but we didn’t hold our Seder until Friday. Not being Jewish, we decided to hold it when it was most convenient and Good Friday seemed like the best time. To get ready, on Friday morning I dug a piece of horseradish root out of the garden. Miriam worked on making food all day. Stacey and Hannah came home from work early to help with the final setting up.
We had a houseful of family and friends. We invited a member of our branch who is a student at Houghton University to come to our house for Passover and Easter. His name is Esafe Taufahema. His family is Tongan, but they live in Utah. We didn’t want him to be alone for Easter and his school was closed for spring break, so he needed a place to go. Miriam and I drove up to Houghton and picked him up on Wednesday afternoon. He is staying over at Shillig’s house. We will take him back to school tomorrow. Our niece Kailie and her husband Ian arrived on Friday mid-morning. They are staying in our guest room. We also we invited our friends Jeff and Angie Moore, and Kurt and Julie – so in all we had eleven people here for our Seder.
With so many people, we had to rearrange things downstairs. We switched the living room and dining room furniture and set up two tables in the living room. That way we could seat everyone without crowding together.
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| Our Seder. |
The Seder went well. As we moved through telling the story of the Exodus, we discussed how it was a type of Christ’s redemption of mankind, and how we, like the children of Israel, are saved by the blood of the Lamb. We pointed out the correlation between the Seder service and the Last Supper. For the meal, we had our traditional menu – apricot chicken, potato latkes, asparagus, broccoli, haroset, hard boiled eggs, and matzah. For dessert we had (not kosher for Passover) almond bread, pound cake, brownies, and homemade ice cream.
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| On a warm spring night. |
Saturday was chilly, but sunny. We had a busy garden day. We did a lot of planting. We planted the onions that arrived on Monday. My shipment of fruit trees, strawberries, and raspberries, and elderberries arrived on Friday afternoon and we planted all of it except the strawberries. We’ll plant those tomorrow. So I have five new apple trees, three peach trees, a sweet cherry tree, two elderberries, and twenty raspberries. None of them will bear fruit this year, but that’s okay. Having an orchard is about what you hope for in three, five, or ten years as much as it is about what you hope for this year. In the afternoon Kurt helped me install a solar panel to open and close my automatic chicken coop door. We’re so high tech now! When that was done, I unhooked the extension cords that powered the barn through the winter and wrapped them up and put away the heaters for the chicken waterers. The barn is now in full spring mode.
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| Planting onions. |
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| Planting fruit trees. |
It was cold, but sunny and bright this Easter Sabbath morning. I was up before the sun and watched it rise in its brilliance, a fitting start to our celebration of the risen Lord. Early this morning, while the rest of the house was still sleeping, I listened (with earphones) to Parts II and III of Handel’s Messiah – glorious music for a glorious morning.
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:20-22,55-57
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| Sunrise this morning. |
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| Easter baskets. |
Our Easter church service was good – filled with good doctrine and the spirit of rejoicing. We sang the two great Easter hymns, Christ the Lord is Risen Today and He is Risen. Stacey, Miriam, Hannah, and I sang the hymn That Easter Morn. We had great talks. We got to meet our new missionaries and invited them home for our Easter feast.
Our feast was held at the Shillig’s house. We had our traditional menu – ham, funeral potatoes, fruit salad, zesty carrots, pickled eggs and beets, asparagus, and rolls. All of it was so delicious. We finished our feast just a short while ago and now we are resting for a bit. Later on, everyone is coming over here for dessert – an assortment of things left over from the last few days of feasting – pies, brownies, pound cake, and chocolate eggs, plus Miriam made an angel food cake with a blueberry compote. So much good food!
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| Our Easter feast. |
It seems that Easter was some sort of threshhold that we’ve crossed into real spring. The last few days have been on the cool side, but after today the weather this week will warm into the 70's. I’m excited to get to work on all the projects I’ve put off while waiting for warmer weather. I can feel the earth waking up, new life surging forth. I feel the excitement of a world renewed and the promise of good things to come.
Christ the Lord is risen!
