A Lott 2 Be Thankful 4: In the Early Morning Hours

I don't know why neither of us could sleep, but yesterday morning found Del and I wide awake at 5:00 a.m. He was up before I was and so dressed and had gone into his office before I got out of bed and dressed myself. I passed his office door where I could see him studying his scriptures at his desk and I knew that his morning prayers would be following shortly after, so I let him be. I went outside to sit on our back porch and waited for him to come out. At about 5:30, he joined me outside, bringing with him a warm fuzzy blanket for each of us, where we bundled up and lay ed our chairs back a little to relax.
The following two hours were spent together, recognizing, rejoicing in and giving thanks for our many many wonderful blessings. We talked about our children one by one, and how their lives are progressing and growing in the gospel. We talked about our grandchildren and some of our hopes and dreams for them, both the ones we already have, and the ones we will have in the future. We talked about our ward and the lovely members we have and how we can love each of them by serving them. We talked about our extended families, especially our parents and what the near future holds for them - about our siblings and the love we have for them. We talked about our marriage - our relationship, our joys, our hopes and dreams and how blessed we are to be where we are in our lives. The bulk of the conversation then turned to our home and yard, garden, forest and all the hard work we have so far put into this place. And then the 'harvest' that we look forward to in the fall. Yes, recognizing all the hard work we have already done only brings to light the even more work will be necessary for the Harvest. But that's why we are here. We knew that coming in to this place....and it's everything we wanted. It's only now though, that I am realizing all of this was much easier to do 10-13 years ago when we were younger and had 3 younger children at home to help us with all of it. Doing all of this at our age now, 53 and 56, is slightly more exhausting. Slightly. But with the same goal of rows and rows of canned food storage on our shelves for us and our children, it makes it worth doing. Self Reliance is our goal....whether it kills us or not.
We watched the sun come up and listened for the many sounds of early morning - the cardinals, the woodpecker, the dogs, cows and horses, the other distinctive bird calls, watched the squirrels coming running through the yard to find acorns and peanuts I had thrown out the night previously. We saw the light start to shine on our rows and rows of planted garden seeds - the strawberries are out, the onions and potatoes have shown huge progress this past week...and finally, our green beans are starting to shoe their pretty little heads. We walked up and down the rows noticing the sporadic green bean sprout pushing it's way through the wet dirt. Del had me take a picture, knowing, that by the end of the day, when I went to take another picture, we would be able to see the successful struggle the bean would have had to show it's pretty little head.
When we started to notice neighbors leaving to go to work, and kids going off to school, we realized we had been out in our own little world for over two hours and it was time to get things going for the day. We said some last little expressions of love and gratefulness and came in the house to start our day.
I am blessed. I love Del more than ever. I love 'us' - our family - the Lord. I give Him thanks for all things, especially my life.