The Late Great Carrot Harvest

Ecclesiastes 11:4 King James Version (KJV)

4 He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.

How are you doing on your To Do List?  Getting things done is often a struggle.  Oh, we all get things done, but it's as they say, "the devil is in the details."  Many times numerous things need to get done - simultaneously.  You feel stretched in all directions!

Image Credit

In those times, it is always a good idea to prioritize.  Sometimes, however, everything feels like it is priority #1.  That's the way it's been with the garden this year.  Both in getting the spring garden in and harvesting the fall/winter garden.  Those are really not chores or dreaded things.  They are things I look forward to.  Unfortunately, it has worked out (or not worked out) that the days that I have an open schedule to garden, I have to work late, or I get stuck in traffic, or it rains.

I have one row of carrots to harvest and this weekend was the time that they must be dug!  Russ and Benjamin came out and helped me.  They've always liked harvesting root crops.  Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Peanuts, Carrots, etc.  It's something about discovering treasure under the soil that is exciting.

The first two rows were Cosmic Purple Carrots and Atomic Red Carrots.  This last row was Berlicum and Danvers Carrots - normal orange ones.  We began digging and almost immediately discovered some bad news!  Oh, it could have been worse, but it was a little discouraging.  As we began pulling the big, beautiful carrots out of the ground, only about 3/4's of them came up.  The rest was rotten!

The cows were happy to oblige in helping us ensure the over-ripe carrots did not go to waste.  Those girls ate so many carrots, we kind of figured the milk would be orange in the morning.

In the final analysis, we lost at least half of the row of carrots.  Not good.  But it could have been worse.  We collected perhaps 2/3's of a five gallon bucket of carrots that weren't rotten.

After washing them off, we found maybe another six carrots that were bad, but the rest we were able to save.

We are still blessed to have a bunch of carrots to eat fresh and to blanch and freeze for later.  Next year, we'll plan better, so as not to lose so many!

I'm in a hurry to get things done

Oh, I rush and rush until life's no fun

All I really got to do is live and die

But I'm in a hurry and don't know why

-Alabama

The Old Picket Fence

Years ago we hired a friend to build our barn.  It is the red barn you see in the banner above and in the background of the picture below.  Rather than purchase new materials, our friend had some left over lumber from a construction project and then he sought out someone who wanted to tear down a shed.  He proceeded to demolish the building and reclaimed some of the old tin, lumber and tongue in groove siding to construct our barn.  This kept costs down and added a little character to our barn.

When he had completed erecting our barn, there was a pile of leftover tongue and groove siding that remained.  In keeping with the reclaiming theme, I made a pattern and used an old jig saw to make pickets and constructed a picket fence in front of the garden.  The boys and I then whitewashed the picket fence as shown in this post: Whitewashing  I always wanted a picket fence and the fence served both an aesthetic purpose as well as a functional one – it looked good and kept critters out of the garden.

A white green picket fence?

Well, fast forward a few years and our picket fence has fallen on rough times.  It no longer serves an aesthetic purpose.  There is a green tinge of algae that covers the pickets and while this could be remedied with a good spraying with a pressure washer and gentle scrubbing with bleach, it would be a waste of time.  The fence is too far gone.

Pickett's Charge...

The pickets, made from old tongue and groove siding, are not made from treated lumber and out in the elements, the fence quickly rots.  If I was to use a pressure washer to clean it, the pickets would break off, much like the ones you see on the gate.

Where moth and rust (and rot) destroys...

I hate to see things in disrepair like this and I have it on my project list for this fall to replace it.  Over lunch today I was researching to see if it might not be a better idea to go with white vinyl picket fence panels instead of a wooden one as I’d only have to clean the fence with bleach and water versus replacing the fence again.  An eight foot panel runs roughly $90 and I’ve got about a 24 foot stretch not counting the gate.  It’s not cheap, but more permanent.

Wooden picket fences are sort of like people.  We were created for a purpose.  Although we may like to think we look good, our time on earth is fleeting and our physical bodies are not immune to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  We get stained each day by the world and worn down and slowly decay.

James 4:14

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

How sad.  However, that’s not the end of the story.  Our old picket fence will probably be taken down and get burned in a bonfire this fall.  We don’t have to be exactly like the picket fence.  Unlike the picket fence, we have souls that will live for eternity.  Although our bodies wear out, our souls live on.  Although our picket fence will burn, our spirit lives on and yearns.

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."