REAP WHAT YOU SOW

Since I couldn't sleep, I thought I would send a few words your way. This past week I have been overly excited about the release of my first two books as an author, Black Bear's Adventure and Black Bear's Adventure Companion Book. They weren't just a labor of love. Blood, sweat, and even a few tears were also involved. But after several years of hard and joyous work, they are complete and the sales and reviews are coming in.

It reminds me of all the gardening I have been doing this summer. Thanks to Covid-19, I have had more time at home to spend in the yard, so I planted my first real garden. Our first year here my green-thumb skills failed miserably. I think it had to do with not watering. Who knew? I planted perfectly straight rows measured with precision, but that was it. I skipped the weeding and watering. That garden patch is now a sad excuse of a lawn.

But this year, even with this summer's drought, my garden has flourished. It's amazing how a little TLC, nurturing, weeding, and watering can produce drastically different results from my initial attempt, classic example of reap what you sow.

While harvesting the abundant produce, I have been thinking how this would make a great post. For the past several weeks, great words of inspiration rattled my brain as I snipped tomatoes from the vines, twisted cukes from their trellises, and plucked beans from the bushes. But like most of the time, I procrastinated and as I sit here at 3:13am, all those wonderful words have sifted out of my head like the dirt draining through the sieve as I washed the veggies.

But we all know what that saying means, reap what you sow. You get out what you put in. It is a painful truth. It doesn't matter what we are doing. It could be work or play time, relationships, cooking, an adventure, raising kids, diet, exercise, writing a book, teaching, learning, and the list goes on. It would be so much easier if we could do it and forget it, much like my first garden attempt. But we know how that turned out. It all boils down to what we do or give is directly proportional to what we receive.

I toiled in the soil and I toiled at the key board and right now I am enjoying the benefits of all that work. I won't rest long though, other seeds are waiting and the sowing will begin all over again.

This garden has been great therapy for me this summer and an adventure all its own as well as a lesson in reaping and sowing.

Each photo below is a different day's harvest.