A Good Kind of Exhausted

Yesterday was a busy day and I came home fairly worn out. It was a good kind of exhausted, though, because the plant sale went extremely well. We had an exceptional group of volunteers making light work of all the tasks. The weather was stunning. We got to visit with friends, neighbors, and lots and lots of customers. And a preliminary tally of the proceeds shows that we exceeded even my loftiest fundraising goal.

Our volunteers putting plants out:

We displayed plants by variety, with signs that Susan and her grandson made:

Susan, Elysian, and I had a planning meeting early in the year and decided who would grow what. It’s not an exact science, as some plants didn’t germinate or grow well and some did, but it gave us a good selection of most everything. I was pleased to note that many people came looking for heirloom varieties. We were able to tell them that most of our vegetable starts were heirlooms, including many from which we save seed each year. Sarah contributed quite a few unique tomato varieties and said that she will do more next year.

This is the event I most enjoy being in charge of and I plan to chair it again next spring.

Planting my own garden begins in earnest this week. I went ahead and scheduled a massage for a week from Tuesday, because I think I am going to need it by then.

Susan brought me two apple trees on Friday that she grafted for me. She has a Duchess of Oldenburg tree and I love that variety for apple pie filling. Now I will have two of my own grafted from cuttings of her tree. I also bought a Spokane Beauty apple at the plant sale; she is not sure that we will get apples from it as it ripens late in the season, but I said I was willing to try it.

The husband spent the day cleaning up the property and burning slash piles. People comment to me that “He works all the time—does he ever relax?” without understanding that for him, that kind of work IS his form of relaxation. Neither of us relaxes by sitting around doing nothing.

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Our Mennonite conference annual meeting will be held in Portland in June. Elaine and I plan to drive over together. We have rented an Airbnb for two nights and will be joined there by Libbie, who is finishing her term as our Leadership Team chairman. Our interim pastor and her family also plan to attend. Miriam was raised and ordained in the Presbyterian faith, but she is a Mennonite at heart and I think she will find a warm welcome in our conference.

After the conference, Elaine and I head up to Seattle for a couple of days. I will visit DD#2 and Elaine will stay with her sister.

When we made our plans, we did not realize that one of the conference days was set aside for gatherings of credentialed leaders. Elaine could attend those meetings, as she is a credentialed pastor, but I am free for the day. I think I will be doing some fabric shopping. I’d love to go downtown to Powell’s Bookstore and wander around for a few hours, but Portland—and Seattle—are no longer the tourist-friendly cities we used to know.

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I received a very weird blast from the past the other day. This showed up in my e-mail with a note:

TKGA has developed a logo for you to use as you market yourself and/or business. It will officially and visually demonstrate your achievement in earning the status of Master Hand Knitter. Please do not share this logo with anyone else.  It is for your use only!

I’m not sure when or where I would use this now, and truly, I thought TKGA was defunct. Oh, well. I appreciate them sending it to me, for what it is worth.