On 3/8/2015 4:58 PM, Fran Farmer wrote:
On 8/03/2015 6:40 AM, George Shirley wrote:

I truly prefer things that are planted to be used, fruit trees, berries,
etc. Should have bought a bunch of land when I was young and healthy and
put in all the fruit trees I wanted. Of course I didn't have the money
back then to do that. It's amazing how much money you can save when your
kids leave home. Had to move twice and they still found us.

LOL. I too like growing productive plants so I can understand this very
well. I still plant things that I know I will never see come to peak
condition in my lifetime.

When I had my first cancer and did a bit of reading on how people coped
with cancer I read about visualisation was supposedly one of the ways of
fighting cancer. Somehow in my mind this morphed into what I'd really
choose to do if I knew I was popping my clogs in the very near future.
The ONLY thing that I could think of that I would really like to do
before I died was to buy a huge chunk of land and plant it with trees
and protect it in perpetuity.

I think we all want to leave something behind when we go, something
meaningful. All I ever wanted was to live and enjoy life and maybe a few
adventures along the way. I'm bumping 76 years already, outlived my
father, grandfather, and great grandfather and one of three uncles.
Multiple Transient Ischemic Attacks (small strokes), four major strokes,
two heart attacks with a bypass and multiple stents, etc. I reckon it's
modern medicine that kept me alive. Will I leave something significant
behind when I go? I've been married to the same woman, coming up on 55
years, two children, five grandchildren, six great grandchildren. My
kids are productive adults, both with college degrees, one of the grands
is working on her masters now, two of them are still in high school, the
other two elder grands are good fathers and husbands, have good jobs
with benefits, and they all walk the walk. Wife and I have taught all of
them the important things that we think lead to a good life. Things like
honesty, integrity, love of family, and, most importantly, how to
garden, preserve their own food, fix things without having to spend
money, and love your family and friends. Reckon that's as close to
immortality as we can get.

Old saying, "To wet to plow." Started raining about 2330 last night, I
was sitting up reading and it came a terrible down pour and has been
raining off and on up until this moment. 2.5 inches of rain so far, I
hope that predicts a good gardening year because we were going to plant
carrots and a few other things today. Instead we read the Sunday paper
and napped a lot. Old people and old dogs like to nap so all three of us
were happy. May the sun shine on your gardens and may the rain be gentle.