Saving the Seeds

It wasn’t a good generation.  Not that it couldn’t have been… it started out good.  Good enough to get the flowers open, the bees buzzing  and the fruit set on the vine.  Some grew big and some were just prolific with all the flowers blooming over and over again.  They looked like they would finish strong.  It looked like  it would be a rich harvest. Only to get better with time.

But then something happened…and no amount of water seemed to be enough.   Perhaps they were overcrowded… stripped the ground … they just couldn’t go the distance… OR maybe it was while I went away and they were out of sight and mind.    Either way… the plants withered and what was left of the harvest was left on the fence and in the beds.  I tried a few times after I came back to revive them but it was too late and by then, I was just over it.

So I gather the good and I brought it inside.   With the last one ready to be eaten I decided to give this another go.  Of course it is too far gone for the plants… they are long gone.  But I have what they did produce.  I remember back to being very small.  Sitting at my great grandmother’s  farm table and eating the very best tomato I had ever tasted I saw what appeared to be her spitting ever so sweetly into her napkin.  As a little girl I was amazed…. and then she did it again!  I had to know what she was doing.  Being very close with her from spending the lion share of time  with her I asked.  She smiled and told me how she always saved the seeds just like this whenever she ate good vegetables.  She also told me it is the only way to stop bad genetics and keep the strong and tasty ones.

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• So I scoop out the gunk and weed through for the little flat prizes.
• I pinch each seed freeing it from the slimy tentacles of it’s entrapment.  I cut off all that was bad…the weakness and failure to thrive…those that could only start strong and finished weak.  I take only from the very best from what I was given and collect those genetics…only those.
• I rinse off all remnants of slime… and lay them out to dry.
• I change them to a dry towel…where they sit for a week or so…( any moisture will result in mold)
• I will keep the jar somewhere dark and cool till spring!

Seeing the Good in the everyday….I am so thankful:

1. For a friend who brings a bottle of wine…because she gets what it’s like when the husband is gone for the whooooole week.
2. Daughters who come up and hug me…who love me… who want to talk about their hearts with me.
3. Daughters who share my heart to fix it all… being able to speak from that place to them.
4. chicken curry salad  already made and not having to figure out lunch.
5. for the man who is my forever taking all of his time home to serve others.
6. Four Houses and Four Weddings marathon on while I was sick… love those shows.
7. A husband who can read a contract and have discernment on when to sign and when to laugh and walk away.
8. One of my favorite missionaries stopping by and hanging out… just praying for me to feel better…Thanks!
9. Stopping a hawk from swooping down and taking the little hen.
10. Being asked, this week, to write over at StudioJRU….yay she is so great!!!!