“In the Dirt” Gardening

Hello Gardening Friends, 

We have recently updated our business card so that we could display it in our community newsletter, rather than the lengthy text Classified Ad that we ran every month for the last few years. Frankly, it was not only a lengthy Ad, it was also necessary to continually update it. And so we have teamed up with a graphic artist and created a 1/8 page color Ad that will appear beginning in May, in the Parkfairfax Forum Newsletter and the Fairlington Community Newsletter. We are hoping this will be easier for everyone to find our business. 

On the back of our card we identified four (4) key service items, if you will, that we offer….. which will give you a better sense of our hands-on gardening approach.

First on this list is “in the dirt” gardening. We wanted to give you a snipet about our style, and for us “in the dirt” is simple and suggests hands on gardening. We are definitely in your dirt when we book an appointment to come and work in your garden. We are a staff of one, namely moi,”“Contessa.” We do employ a couple helpers, but the key to our true gardening work and style is to dig dirt, remove weeds from your dirt, till and work your soil with our hands and add fertilizer, compost and rich organic matter into you beds.  We garden with our own hands and a large dose of TLC (tender loving care.) We often remove plantings, divide them, reposition/transplant them and work them back into the soil where they can grow successfully and produce for you. The point being, that sometimes plant life has grown to the point that it needs a new home. Or it’s become way overgrown for the space it’s in, or it’s looking sickly because it has a bug or a blight. It could be because it’s planted in too much sun or too little sun. And sometimes it has grown so large it is crowding another plant right beside it…that wants more room.

The real point is that when we evaluate our preparation of your beds, we will definitely get down “in the dirt” with our hands, our garden tools, and our “gardening soul.” You see, for us, it’s a manual and a spiritual endeavor. We have found our soul in all your gardens. Digging in the soil is definitely our “call” and our happy place. It’s where we can be close to nature, the earth (dirt) and our great and all loving God. He is with us and we are with Him. Rest assured that we will give your garden, the plants, and the soil, our very best effort. And we will give our best effort to you also. We also give our best, to our Lord and our God. He is our constant and ever loving companion. This is our blessing, and we take it very seriously. We are called to help you and glorify our God. So “in the dirt” gardening is our gift to you.

We provide the following service items to everyone, upon request.

• In the Dirt” Gardening
• Four Seasons Bed Preparation
• Monthly Maintenance Contracts
• Nursery Visits By Appointment

In our next blog post we will address:

“Four Season’s Bed Preparation”

”Contessa” says…..it’s a very good thing!

Lenten Study – Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

CLAIM YOUR BLESSINGS

Count your blessings. It sounds so simple. They come along every day. After one year, you have so many but in our modern lifestyles we are often so busy we have forgotten how blessed we really are. I urge you to create and nurture presence. This presence means paying particular attention to notice that you are being blessed. It’s not easy for busy people to even receive a blessing, like a kind word from another, because we must stop, listen, pay attention and “receive” gracefully what is offered to us. Take time to really notice how you are being blessed.

Read: 3:17-21

Prayer

Father, my great God, help me see and to experience each blessing you bestow on me. Our creation and the lives of others in my life are your glory at work. You bring blessings into all our lives. May I notice the moon and it’s evening light, the harvest season with plentiful fruits and vegetables, the fluffy clouds up in your most blue sky. Your blessings are always there for me. Father, I pray you will help me to slow down, and help me to show my gratitude through daily prayer. I ask for true reverence for all the many wonderful blessings that you provide. I thank you for every single moment that you have given me and I am grateful for all your gifts. 

 

• AMEN • 

Lenten Study – Fourth Sunday of Lent

Overcome Fear

Do you love Jesus?  Do you want to hold on to your friends, even if they do not lead you closer to Him? I love Jesus…. but I want to hold on to my independence even if that independence brings me no freedom. I love Jesus but I don’t want to give up my travel plans, my speaking plans, my writing plans, even if all these plans are more for my glory than the glory of God.

Am I like Nicodemus?….who admired Jesus but was afraid to loose the respect of his colleagues.

Read: John 7:40-52

This is the Messiah……

Prayer

My dear Father God….help me to examine my motives and my actions with your purposes for me in mind. I do not want to be overly swayed or influenced by the advice of my friends, and those who share their free opinions. My prayer this morning is that I will always look to you, rather than to others for helping me to set my priorities. I wish to reject my own will…..and keep my peace with You.

Sometimes other people like family, friends, colleagues, media, and public opinion attempt to influence me. I wish to weed out influences that are not healthy for me. And Lord, help me to stand up for an unpopular belief, but one that is morally sound, true and right. So during my Lenten devotions, help me to always keep my peace with You.

* Amen *

Lenten Study – Friday of the Third Week of Lent

Acknowledge God’s Love

Gods Love is not earned, but freely given. Does this inspire you to think and contemplate on Gods perfect kind of love? He decided to love us in his complete freedom. His choice, His decision. If you think about this and reflect on it deeply, it can totally have an influence and change your whole life. How can our humanness fathom this, when as earthly people we think that we have to do something nice, so that we can be loved by others. We think being loved by others is something we have to earn. We find it hard to believe we can get something for nothing.

 

Read: Luke 6:27-31

Dear God….you are most high. Please take me back into your love that I can never earn. I confess my sin and my shortcomings. Your forever forgiveness is undeserved by me. I know in my heart that your love is unconditional. But my human nature always thinks that others will only love me if I  act as if I love them. I am in awe of the love you give me that is boundless and can never be withdrawn. Father please give me your grace to accept this “love gift” from You.

•• AMEN ••

Lenten Study – Tuesday the Third Week of Lent

LENT A TIME TO
Prepare

Life is a journey of preparation. All our lives we prepare to truly die for others. In an accumulation of little deaths throughout life, God is asking us to release our clinging tendency and need of others….to living for them. As we walk the journey from childhood to adolescence, to adulthood and finally to our old age, always we are offered ways to choose for ourselves, ultimately perhaps choosing for others. Questions come up; do I desire power or service, do I want to be seen, or to remain hidden; do I strive for success in the career I chose, or do I follow my vocation? In the final act of our life it is truly about the process of dying to self. This passage is where we will experience living in the “joy of God.”

Please read: Luke 12:42-48

Prayer

My Father God,

As I walk through the journey of my life I too easily do what is wrong instead of right. But you always are there for me and I know that you love me even when I have sin in my heart. As I walk along through my life, please remind me to choose service over power, and a desire a true vacation to your Word, rather than a highly successful career. I pray for a hidden self in my service to others, and I pray to be my real self and experience a true sense of what is very real and not at all real. I now examine my conscience….and I pray right now….to choose to improve my actions and my thoughts with your help…..Oh’ My Savior God.

 

••  AMEN  ••

Lenten Study – Monday of the Third week of Lent

Receptivity

My Prayer

Father God, your gifts to me are so generous and there are so many. I can see your gifts in the smallest of living things and in so many very grand and great things. Thank you for all of your creation; the mountains, skies, forests and the seas. I feel so small and my gifts are so little. I do respect and now give great thanks for all your works.  I also thank you for the many gifts given to me here on earth, by my companions here in life. If I receive gifts with a grateful heart I am giving happiness to the giver. In your honor I wish to accept all gifts with a pure heart. I gratefully receive all gifts and thank you for all my many wonderful blessings. 

 

•AMEN•

Lenten Study – Third Sunday of Lent

HOPE

One who has hope is not concerned with how wishes will manifest. And the prayer of a person of hope is not directed at the gift they hope for, but the prayer is offered to God who gives it. It’s about faith in the giver of all good gifts. The requests for the gifts are not demands, because the hope is that God gives only “good” things. With true hope you are willing to be open and to wait, even though you never know where, when, or how this gift might happen.

Read Hebrews 6:17-20

Prayer

Dear Father God, my shepherd, help me hear your voice of assurance when I am lost and feeling hopeless. I yearn for your rest and safety when you and I are in each other’s presence. Sometimes I have fear and I may be tempted to run away from you….but please Father,  never give up on me. My complete hope is in You.

AMEN

Ms Peggy’s Garden – Spring Tidy (REVISED ) – Tues Evening – 3/7 – 6 pm

Today we visited Ms Peggy’s garden. She is now over 90  and so we take care of her….and her lovely spot. She is as neat as a pin and from May 1 through late October you will find her outdoors sitting in her lawn chair and visiting with all her neighbors as they pass by….. and of course all the dogs. Ms Peggy loves pets.

The gardening project that we completed last week…that will  soon go up for sale, was a referral from Ms Peggy to the real estate agent who contacted us. As a thank you gesture, we are going to take care of her spring tidy. We started today and will return tomorrow. Upon completion, we will take video and add to this post upon completion.

For us….being outdoors is our best act, so in the grand scheme of life,  Ms. Peggy is paying us…:by needing some work done in her lovely little yard. It’s a very good thing to do. More tomorrow………

“CONTESSA”

REVISED – Tues Evening – 3/7 – 6 pm 

52 degrees at Noon with a very brisk 24 mph wind, so we completed our tidy up; to include weeding, and edging all the beds. Prep for laying a fresh coat of hardwood bark mulch. Our homeowner was out for the day so we just proceeded to cut back late fall dried growth and remove any old mulch that was full of dead leaves. An invasive weed with tiny white blossoms was growing along the brick edging of the bed, and back up against the brick wall in the bed, so we removed all of them. Because of the brisk wind we elected to return tomorrow to lay the mulch and finish up. It’s looking tidy and fresh.

Today’s Video…..

 

Lenten Study – Second Sunday – Day 12

Bringing Pain Home

Pain can run deep in us. Amazingly….it won’t just go away. We are all called to “bring our pain home.” If your wounds remain pushed down and foreign to your true adult self, your pain will injure not only you, but others as well. We all have to incorporate our past pain into “ourself” and let it bear fruit in our heart…..and the hearts of others.

So examine you pain because this is the very essence of why Jesus asks us to take up our cross. Accept and embrace your own unique suffering. Trust that this will become the way to the salvation of your soul. So the taking up of your own cross means becoming a friend of your own wounds and let them show you….. your own truth.

This is a powerful realization of course. Once we bring our pain home, we can rest in your salvation with Jesus Christ.

Our Scripture: Mark 8:34-37

Prayer

My Father God I bring you praise this Sunday Sabbath morning, and I thank you this sunny and beautiful day, because in Jesus Christ I have your assurance of salvation. Your death on the cross and resurrection allow the door to be opened to me, to share in life everlasting. Please help me to take up my crosses and keep my pain “at home” so that my life may be a living sign of your love.

 

•• AMEN ••

Lenten Study- Friday of the First Week – Day 10

A Call To Intimacy

Jesus offers us an intimacy with Him. The symbol of a vine and its branches, and growth that interconnects us with him. Just as we are being offered this kind of intimacy with him, visualize a picture yourself as a branch that is being grafted on to Jesus; as a branch of the vine from which all life comes. If we are part of the vine and are in communion with Jesus, the vine and our very “little life” can grow together and bear fruit. It’s very real to experience this. But…. do we live this truth? We all tend to want to explore sources of life and enjoy them outside of Jesus. But….truly only listen for Him. Listen……

Jesus keeps saying “Come back to me, give me all your burdens, all your worries, fears, and anxious thoughts. Trust that with me you will find complete Rest.”

Read John 15:1-5

”I am the vine and you are the branches.”

My Prayer

Oh’ my ever giving and great God, thank you for shaping and pruning all my human efforts; please God teach me how to celebrate and accept all of life’s pains and sorrows, so that through them, I can come to discover a deeper love of you, and a much stronger hope in your promises. Sometimes I can see a loss or a failure as a setback or a punishment. Oh God, teach me that these are divine opportunities for a more fruitful and mature life in You. I pray you will always abide in me.

I now give you my thankful heart. Amen……