~and this is the thing called "life"~

Seven geraniums sit upon the windowsill in the kitchen here at home in Montrose.  They were rescued from their certain fate very early in the month of September.  Nothing would have remained of them had I not brought them in and began to nurture their tender leaves indoors.  The cold and freezing temperatures of the month of November have taken all of the remaining plants and flowers that dotted the landscape around our house.  "The dark" has returned and even though the start of winter is officially still a month away now, for all intents and purposes at least on this side of the mountain, even Autumn has begun to fade away.

And this is life.

Back home in Kansas, I grew geraniums like crazy.  I'd make a trip down to the Westlake Hardware Store on the corner of 14th and Main to buy up about 4 dozen of them on Mother's Day weekend.  They'd be those little ones in a small container, ones that would grow into beautiful and big plants if I took good care of them.  I never even paid much attention to the colors I would choose although as I look back on it now, the bright red ones were probably my favorite.  All summer long, on my front porch and in the backyard around the garden area they could be seen.  I loved them in Kansas and I still love them here in Colorado.  Plants, especially geraniums, are good for the spirit and equally good for the soul.

When I made one of my final trips back home to Kansas in July, I dug up a small piece of my mom's "live forever" plant to bring back to the mountains with me.  It was important for me to take it and try to keep it alive in a place where I now make my home.  With care I dug around it, taking the "just right" piece from the ground.  I was careful and made sure to take some of the soil with me that it was growing in.  I loved the feeling of the earth in my backyard in Hutchinson, soil that was rich and fertile.  It is the kind of soil that you love to walk barefoot through after the garden has been tilled in the springtime.  The dirt feels that good there.

Here in Colorado, at least in the area that we live in, the soil is filled with clay and I remember my frustration when I attempted to grow things in it the first summer I was here in 2013.  Mike could have probably made a fortune if he had charged me $1 for every time I uttered the phrase.....


"This is the worst soil I have ever seen in my whole life!  How can anyone even grow anything here?  I'm not trying to plant anymore seeds because they won't even make it to begin with!  Not wasting my time on it."

Geesch, talk about a whiner.  That was me.

This past summer was a whole lot better and we actually made a few more things grow.  We had fun along the way, watching the progress of our plants.  Not everything made it but not everything always made it back in Kansas either.  Mike did battle with stupid ground squirrels who really weren't stupid at all.  They were actually quite brilliant in their efforts to systematically mow off pepper plants and most of the basil.  In the end, the score ended up being "people~6 and ground squirrels~0" but without a doubt they will return to greet us come next summer and we shall be ready for them.

And with all of the ups and down of the growing season, this is life.

When the grasshoppers started appearing in late August, I knew it was time to get those 7 geranium plants indoors if I had any hope of saving them to keep during the winter.  It was weird to remember that even back in my old home on the plains of Kansas that grasshoppers came to visit.  I did the same thing back there as I now do here and all winter long, I will watch their beautiful blooms and feel happy.

Just like the geraniums, I have grown and changed here too and with a fair amount of resilience and a whole lot of refining on God's sometimes very uncomfortable anvil, even a flatlander like me has learned how to survive in a place that seemed like a foreign country in the beginning.  Not that long ago I was looking through some of the blog posts I made in June and July last year.  I hadn't even been here two entire months yet I was already at the point of giving up and returning to the Midwest.  Dear sweet Kansas, I love you and your people with all of my heart, but I no longer cry in homesickness for you each and every day and that's a good feeling.  My niche has been carved out for me here in the Rocky Mountains.  And hey, it's not like I moved here from Rhode Island or something.  I just came from the neighbor's house, right "next door".

Have a great day my dear family and friends, wherever you are on this planet called "Earth".  I am thinking of you from a place far away and remembering you all still.

Finally the ground squirrels gave up!

We learned how to dry herbs and it was fun.  Not a bumper crop or anything.  Just a start.

In the weeks before school started in mid-August.  I learned that it will take a whole lot more than homesickness and poor soil to defeat me.  I was much stronger than I would have ever thought and I like that about me.