TEND OUR GARDEN
Back to Eden

I’m homegrown, growin’ my own, and I need ya
Need ya to beg my pardon, to tend my garden
Joe Walsh

After getting a big check for his work with the Eagles, Walsh bought a farm with a lake in Saxtons River, Vermont, intending to live off the land. He found this lifestyle quite tricky – especially in winter – so he sold the place. Five-Thousand miles away, Joe discovered his spiritual connection, the Channel Islands in California’s Santa Barbara Channel. “If there is a God, he hangs out on this island a lot,” We may all be in search of a garden to tend, a place we can step into the soil to feel the pulse of our creator.

Our gardens, the vegetable farm garden, grandma’s and grandpa’s garden, and our food forest plot around our home are rich in spiritual nutrition. The earth supplies nutrients for both the body and soul. If we all planted a garden, the world would become a peaceful place of gathered growers. We have tilled and fed the soil; it is spring and time to grow.

I am unsure what Joe Walsh was referring to when he wrote, ‘Tend My Garden.’ He may have been raising fresh herbal to smoke and escape the craze of rock and roll living. It does not matter; I like the idea of what it takes to tend our gardens and our lives. God is in the garden. He spoke about it many times:

“I am the genuine vine, and my Father is the gardener. He breaks off every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and he prunes every branch that does bear fruit so that it will be clean and bear more fruit. 
John 15

Victory Garden

It is spring in Dakotah; time to plant. The snow still clings to a few shaded north slopes. This year winter refused to relinquish its grip. It is spring in Dakotah, time to grow the food we will need to nourish us for the year to come. We are planting Honey-berry, Juneberry, Elderberry, and Gooseberries on our lakeside food-forest lot. We fill the slopes with Zinnia seeds and eagerly await the first sign of our perennials. The first to show is the Lilac and Forsythia, then the Peonies, Day Lily, Iris, Columbines, Echinacea, Phlox, Yarrow, and Asters. Excitement builds for the first sightings of crocus on the prairie. God has answered our prayers showering spring rains on the drought-parched ground filling the lake and washing the earth clean of the winter’s dust. It is spring in Dakotah; time to plant. Grandmother’s garden at the farm is a half-acre awaiting the seed—the perennial food plants, the Asparagus, Rhubarb, Apple, Cherry, Plum, and Pear are sprouting. Time to tend our gardens. God created man to tend His garden, Eden:

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth[a] and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams[b] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed a man[c] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food…The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ~ Genesis 2

It is springtime in the Dakotah and the birds of spring return from far south to mate. Bright new and beautiful colors have found our feeders; the Orioles, Finches, and the Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Photographing birds out the window has mixed results. At times the focus is challenging, and inflight is always a coin-flip. But I want to share the sights of the feeder out my window with all of you. This story is best told in pictures:

Orange of spring

In-Flight

Orange in flight

Yellow Peep

Male & Female

It is spring in the Dakotah! Time to Tend our Gardens. We must care for the garden planet God gave to man! I am not talking about some globalist green-new-deal crap; I am talking about individual efforts in caring for our gardens, and our back yards.e, plant a seed.

Plant a tre