My garden is a ragamuffin group this year.

When Riley came home for a visit this spring, he helped me plan the raised beds and he suggested making homemake pickles. I yelled “brilliant!” and we piled in the van to the local tractor supply for seeds.

While Riley was in Montana, I prayed and watered and hoped that his garden grew to be strong so that when he returned home it would be magnificent!

Riley returned home from Montana at the beginning of June and the cucumbers decided they were all together too hot to respond correctly to my plea. Riley joined in helping care for them and we all began spending evenings on the patio, drenching the gardens while the epic nerf gun battles happened.

The carrots finally decided to arrive, tiny and mighty.

I decided the carrots were correct. They made a grand entry, after all. It was better that Riley was there to care for them and coax them grow larger for our benefit.

And finally, last week, we had one cucumber. We immediately decided to make Shannan’s pickles. IFKYK.

We tried our very best to wait 24 hours to open the lid, but we gave in at hour 21, deciding that had to be good enough – right?! Oh my – they were so good. They lasted 11 minutes and we declared we would be planting many more pickles next spring.

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The roses have been my faithful friend this summer. I heard once that the best fertilizer a gardner can give the garden is His shadow. I think of that phrase all the time when I wander in the morning. I prune and weed and water and smirk that all of creation is an obvious daily devotional if we are only quiet enough to let our thoughts drift to Him.