Day Four - April 4, 2020
Today I (again) awoke to a white bundle of joy snuggled up to my legs.
The sun rose, despite a global pandemic. Today I didn’t take a walk.
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But… oy vey! My hands are sore, my calves are sore, my arms are sore! We’ve been in planning mode for our next raised garden box for the past 8 months. We sketch it on paper, take it to the yard, pound in the wooden posts… and then it just stops.
Sometime later, we go back to the drawing board for one reason or another, adjust it on paper, take it to the garden and… it just stops. Somehow the task of channeling a trough straight through the root system of a large tree in our yard was just too daunting and so we gave up.Inadvertently, something more exciting or pressing always seemed to occupy our free time!
But now… there is NOTHING more exciting or pressing to occupy any amount of time! This is it - this is the time. Thankfully, we already had most of our supplies here - so this morning, we hit the ground (literally) running!
I will not lie - a few choice words went flying across the yard when I tried to exercise my feng shui, “foo-foo” creativity. After all the time we spent talking about this thing - I didn’t see why taking a few extra minutes this morning to make it artistically appealing was so wrong. Apparently the lines I drew out sat neatly all along the root system of the tree! Oy vey!
The “Russian” graciously swung blow after blow with his axe… sweat ran down his neck. Daniel was subjected to yet another one of my geometry lessons and patiently kept shoveling out the perimeter…
After nearly six hours of leveling out the ground, we were finally able to stake the corners in place and called it a day. Tomorrow is another opportunity to tackle the next stage.
It is really hard work to lay a foundation. I watched Andrei and Dan fighting and tackling the root system of our huge tree with every tool they could get their hands on. Some tools worked great for certain purposes but others burned out almost instantly. It was a combination of all sorts of tools combined with sheer determination and really hard physical work to properly set the ground level boards in place.
To look at what we accomplished today, for most, would probably seem trivial. For us, we are pleased. We know that when we head back out tomorrow afternoon, the hardest task is behind us. Those ground level boards are set in place with rebar, level, and not moving.
When Dan was in 3rd grade, a huge housing development was being built near our home. That was my first year homeschooling. Quite a few times a week, we took advantage of this construction site to study. We talked about architecture, maps, sewer and water systems, electrical cables, retention ponds. We watched them level the ground, pour the footers for the foundation, erect the concrete basement walls, and then get that top sill plate in place. That first piece of wood to which the trusses would attach…
And then overnight, it seemed that suddenly a house would appear. All the careful, forensic, intricate work of laying a good foundation seemed to take “forever” - only to be fully HIDDEN underground - backfilled and never seen again.
Along the side of the construction site, near where the sewer lines were going in, we read our way through the book of Proverbs… seeing how God calls us to carefully work at laying a good and firm foundation on which to build our lives.
That was a tricky year for us because the traditional school system wasn’t meeting his needs and we knew we needed to change. We learned much about one another that year… about building and construction - not just in a housing development - but within our hearts.
Today, as he swung his axe, Dan tested me with chemical equations, mathematical puzzles and French. Ugh… When did he get so smart? When did he soar past me in so many ways! I don’t know the exact answer - but I’m pretty sure it has to do with asking our gracious God to give us wisdom and strength to lay the firm foundation for this man of God to flourish.
