Lesson from a Garden #2

The first couple of years my friend and I gardened together we would plant tomatoes and then 6 weeks later or so we would put cages  around them. It was hard painful work.

Then we got smart and began putting the cages up as soon as we planted the tomato plants. The wire cages seemed so big compared to the plants. Then last year I made 9 of the tomato cages pictured below out of pvc. I got so tired of the wire cages not being able to hold the weight of the plants as they grew much taller than the cages.

This year I planted the tomatoes and then put these big white frames over them. The tomatoes are probably twice as big as when planted.

I always think that putting the cages up when the plants are so small is a wondeful picture of faith--the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.

I hope for the tomatoes that I cannot see.

It's also easy to just start the garden season with the faith that I will need the cages rather than waiting until the plants are large and unwieldy before putting on the cages. If only I started life or life events with faith rather than letting things get into a mess and then fix it.

The Newspaper Should BE a Model T

A childhood memory is looking out the living room waiting for the newspaper. Typically a sibling and I would race out to be the first to retrieve it. Some days I think we almost grabbed it before it hit the ground after being thrown from the "paper ladies" car. We would often all be in the living room passing around sections of the paper until we had all read it. Growing up I read The Decatur Daily every day through high school.

In college dorm students were given a great rate of $20/year for The Greenville News. All four years I paid for it and was willing to do so even if my roommates didn't want to go in on it.

In Illinois I read the Peoria Journal Star essentially daily for 11 years. My first two years I think I read Jack and Irma's copy upstairs or they would set it at the top of the stairs for me when they were finished with their subscription. Their sharing saved this poor beginning school teacher $10-15 a month. I got my own subscription when I moved in the Jefferson St. apartment and transferred that when I moved to Peoria.

One of the first things I did in my moves to Daphne, Xenia, Chattanooga, Xenia again, and Hudsonville was to get a subscription to the local newspaper. While in Chattanooga the Chattanooga Times (left wing) and the Chattanooga Free Press (right wing) merged to become the Times Free Press. My move to Hudsonville was newspaper shock as the Grand Rapids Press was an afternoon paper.

In February of this year, the Press began home delivery only 3 days a week--Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. An e-replica version of the paper is available for subscribers so daily paper reading is still available. However, reading the newspaper online is different than holding it in your hands.

One of my favorite traditions was grabbing the Saturday morning paper and sitting down with a cup of coffee. I always read a paper from front to back except for when the Press put Sports after Living as I like to end with the comics. Typically it would take an hour to read the paper on Saturdays unless I had more important plans and had to rush.

I hate not getting the paper delivered every day as my paper reading habits have changed. These are my observations of the last four months.

1. I don't read the paper every day including online anymore.
2. It is easier to read the paper online as I can do it anywhere and no longer have to wait until I'm home to get it off the porch.
3. I connect to other news sources more with apps on my Touch and hopefully now with my smart phone so I don't need the newspaper to get the details of the news.
4. Trying to read the Press on my Touch is not the same as the physical paper or the computer.
5. When I read the newspaper now especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays I've already read or seen that news on other sources so it's old news.
6. Just realized calling it a news"paper" when reading it online is an oxymoron.
7. I've adjusted to the changes of my newspaper reading, but I don't really like it. Sitting here with a computer on  my lap on this Saturday morning is not the same as hearing the pages crinkling when turned.
8. The change in delivery schedule is making the newspaper even less viable.

My Dad always says that change is necessary--after all we could still be driving Model Ts, but the change in reading a newspaper is still a downer for me.