May 22

With a few trays full of rapidly growing seedlings on the patio off our bedroom and lining the punch-out window in the kitchen, I headed out this morning in search of the one thing I was missing to make large-scale transplantation possible: plant stakes and ties.

Fortunately Lowe's had a few (and by a few I mean a few) of each, so I scooped 'em up and headed home with my garden'y treasures. And a few hours later, I'd successfully dug up the (very) hard dirt in (part of) one of my three planter boxes and transplanted a host of pea plants (to the right) and some bean plants (to the left).

I don't know how they'll do out there, but I'm hopeful that they'll take root and grow and be fruit(bean)ful in a month and a half or so. And when I think about that in broader terms, I realize that on an ideal day, that's how I try to live my life: I try to plant seeds --do the right things, be kind, be responsive, be a good friend-- and hope (and pray) that the seeds I plant will take root and grow. Of course I have no control over whether or not those seeds will yield fruit, but I do my job by planting them and praying that they will. And on the days when I feel like I'm not enough and it's not enough, I tell myself that it is, because, when it comes down to the brassiest of the brass tacks, the truth is that praying is the most you can do.