Across the interstate from the campground we are managing is a small orchard.
In early August we saw they needed help picking peaches and this unraveled into helping pick anything and everything!
It’s been fun to learn: when to pick a peach (when the point is gone and the grove isn’t too deep)…..how to harvest okra (with clippers, once they are about finger length and at least finger width. Chase has deemed okra his favorite vegetable plant…it’s tall, keeps producing, has awesome flowers- pictured below!!)…… when to pick a watermelon (once the tendril is dry and there is a yellow spot on the bottom) and the list could go on and on!
After a few days of work over there…..Mac, the boy who lived on the ranch came back to us. Jeans, button up plaid shirt, belt buckle, cowboy boots and hat…that Mac. He’d work over there with one of us. When Chase picked apples he wore that bag over his shoulders, filled it up and then dumped it in the bin for sorting in the warehouse later.
It’s been fun to do. And my heart loves being in a garden. It’s not Eden but man I just feel God differently in a garden than I do anywhere else.
One time I was picking apples and I was in shock by one particular tree. On one side of it you saw a good ole normal apple tree. Green leaves full of fruit. Then I went to go pick on the other side and yikes. A huge portion had fallen….a storm….a bug….a something bad…had taken its toll on this tree. Some of tree was on the ground, the leaves were brown….yet it was fruitful. And my mind just could not get over it.
Even during our tough times, our storms, the woes…… those stretches can still be fruitful! A storm is not an excuse to be rude, impatient, callused and hard. When we’re squeezed what oozes out of us…the yuck or the fruit? The fruit of the Spirit as listed in Galatians 5:22-23 is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control….may these be the fruit that are seen in us, even during the tough times!
And I’ll leave you with this fun fact…Maelee was due on Monday September 26th…I woke up that day and knew I wasn’t going into labor any time soon….so I went to go work at the orchard and picked apples….and wouldn’t you know that evening around 10:00 the contractions started and didn’t stop and we had a babe in our arms the next morning! She’ll forever be connected to the orchard and Jonathan apples!
