Cypress Mulch Day - And the Mower Goes Wheels Up

Our helper's children came over and played with Sassy,
who loved the petting and ball tossing.
She wanted to play catch after they left, too.

Our helper came over with his small children to mow and mulch. The electric mower made some sad sounds and crossed over the rainbow bridge.

We switched over to mulching the new garden, the future corn patch. Sassy got petted by two children she knows well and grinned the whole time. When the kids got restless, I got the squeaky ball, and she played catch with them from then on.

I am opening up new garden areas by laying down newspapers and covering them with wood mulch. We only dig where needed for new plants or seeds. When the seedlings come up, more mulch can be used. I used to do that with extra lawn clippings, long ago in Midland. I asked for lawn clippings and autumn leaves wherever I could, and often picked them up from the street. LI said about my pick-ups, as he hid in the backseat, "Why couldn't I have a normal dad?"

But he ate the sweet corn and everything else.

I was always impressed at the volume of organic matter swallowed up by the soil creatures. No matter what I put in the yard, and kept in the yard, I always needed more. Pet rabbits contributed with their wire cages over children's swimming pools. Instead of water in the rigid pools, we had soil and earthworms. The soil and worms provided the sanitation, and the worms grew faster than excuses at WELS headquarters.

As all gardeners know, rabbits have hot (high nitrogen) manure, and earthworms have no trouble using it, taming it, and converting it to casts and wormlings. I often had masses of earthworms in one ball as I hauled the bounty out to the garden and got fresh soil plus a few starter worms.

The water holding quality of humus was demonstrated today when I stuck my hand in the garage rain gutter overhead. I had no living maple treelets, but I had handfuls of maple seeds and leaves trying to compost. By holding onto water, they became effective corks in the gutter, finally oozing down to the bottom as I shook it, knocked it, and poured water down.

Hydrangeas are another flower I do not grow.

That is why humus rich soil does well when rain is sparse. The humus holds it between particles and keeps the cycle of life moving along. Humus and mulch mean my plants do not easily get the droops on a hot, dry day.

The scientists think in terms of N-P-K, but the soil is far more complex than three chemicals.

Forty bags of mulch have cost only $80, and they will become composted soil in time, as earthworms and soil creatures break down the woody residue and digest it, mixing it with the heavy clay in our yard.

I think of the mulch as compost on the spot, forcing the dying lawn to compost as well. The soil will be much richer in the spring, when the serious gardening begins. Worked soil is far more productive, because a large volume of plant material grows in it, digs roots down, and returns as compost when all the crop trash is re-used.

Tomorrow Is the Anniversary of the Augsburg Confession - Confessio Augustana

The Augsburg Confession Paperback

by Dr. Gregory L. Jackson (Author), Norma A. Boeckler (Author)

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* Includes 10 unique, original illustrations by Norma Boeckler. Many people misunderstand confessions of faith, as if confessions were in opposition to the Scriptures. The Bible is the revealed Word of God, inerrant and infallible, while a confession is man’s witness about God’s revelation. Therefore, the Scriptures are God’s unique message to man – irreplaceable. For that reason, The Holy Bible judges all books. Nevertheless, confessions are valuable and instructive. They are man’s testimony about the meaning of God’s Word. They are concise and precise. When there are conflicts about the meaning of the Scriptures, confessions help people compare areas of agreement and disagreement. Paul commended this activity when he wrote, “For there must be also heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.” 1 Corinthians 11:19 KJV. Luther compared this to identifying the wormy flour and separating it from the good flour. Bakers know that wormy flour must be removed immediately from the tons of flour around it, before everything is corrupted and ruined with bugs.

Neighborly Competition in Gardening

We had our own gourmet cook when we went to Moline.
Our motel was next door to his bistro.

When I first began pruning the maple tree, my neighbors laughed as they pointed at me. They were saying to each other, "Now we have to keep up."

Our trees were drooping with low branches and nothing had been done in landscaping. Luther only wanted to garden in retirement. He was called back to preach and gave us his tremendous Sermons on John's Gospel. Seminaries of all persuasions should drop their silly courses and use that - or the Lenker set - to replace their curricula.

When I asked my neighbor for more newspapers, he asked, "More roses?" I said, "Not yet." This is for the vegetable and corn patches in the backyard.

All I have to do is a new project and my neighbors are outside adding to theirs. It is great fun. We do little favors, back and forth, and talk about the way things should be. He warned me about rototilling into the utilities, even when flagged, and that convinced me to mulch on top of the lawn.

At dawn I went outside and looked at all the plants growing, front and back yard. Then I sat down at our front porch eyrie to look over the roses - with raindrops still clinging to them, .Now I have people imagining an old porch six feet above the lawn. This is about three inches above. Did you want me to say - "from the sparrow's nest..."?

The living Seed and the engrafted Word
Seed is the perfect metaphor for God's Word. Since God created all things through Christ, Who is the Creating Word, that is no coincidence.

Seed is alive, just as the Word is alive with the Holy Spirit. Seed can be stored a long time and still germinate from moisture. Inside many seeds is a tiny starter plant and food to get it going. When put in moist soil, the seed knows exactly how to send out tiny roots for stability, food, and water, leaves for photosynthesis.

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Mark 4:2ff. And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine, Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow: And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.

Gruss an Aachen Rose - Greetings to Aachen, Germany - The First Floribunda - Aromatic, Hardy, Shade Tolerant

Gruss an Aachen is my solution to the shade under the maple tree. Some of you wonder, "But what about planting where maple tree roots are so shallow?

Maple trees hog the water supply with their tough surface roots, but I can create some depth of soil on the perimeter by purchasing some and using circular, ceramic fencing. The surface will be covered by periwinkle, a favorite for shade and for holding soil in place.

Although this seems a stretch, I did some more reading about this rose, which I have grown before. Gruss an Aachen is unusually tough, flowers well in semi-shade, and is also disease resistant. David Austin considered GaA good enough to sell with his modestly-named David Austin Roses (TM).

Isn't that like saying, "I like this Michelangelo so much that I have decided to sell it with my Greg Jackson paintings?"?

Aachen is quite the city - the most western in Germany, where many German kings have been crowned. It also has the hottest of the hot springs, so the wealthy still love going there for the cure.

When It Rains, I Plant
The rain came down in torrents for a long time yesterday. When it let up, I went outside to plant a few miniature sunflowers, for contrast in the rose garden. Mrs. Ichabod half-heard my plans, but reacted strongly when it was done. She imagined one of my sunflower forests, which are pretty neat by themselves. I used one to conceal the play equipment for kids, so the youngest one enjoyed "hiding" from us and popping out of the tree-like stalks.

When not in bloom, this plant is just 12 to 15 inches high!

The big Sunflower you can grow in a small pot! There are many dwarf Sunflowers out there these days, but none quite like Sunny Smile. Plant it in a 4- or 6-inch pot and it will grow a neat 12- to 15-inch-high plant with a single giant bloom fully 5 inches across! Or put it in the garden, where it remains just a bit over a foot high but branches beautifully, giving you 4 to 5 big blooms! Versatile, beautiful, and so easy to grow, it belongs in every sunny garden and flowerpot!

Mammoth - or striped - Russian sunflowers can be nine feet tall. 

I found out that I ordered pole beans instead of bush beans. I can plant the pole beans along the chain link fence.

Hollyhock seeds will be planted soon.

When I picked up the mulch, I saw a large swath of Queen Ann's Lace growing together on the other side of the road, leaving Lowe's. I hit the brakes and ran over to harvest a few.

Each flower seems to have a spot of dried blood on it - or an insect. The flowers cleverly planned this, to attract more insects. That is what evolution teaches us.

They are a great plant for bees and butterflies, so I left the seed-heads in the grassy alley between homes on our block. Some people groom the area, which is only six feet across. Others let various weeds or vines grow there.

From a Bunker Deep in WELS-land.

THE3111 01	Congregational Assimilation and Retention	Olson, Lawrence O	Searcy	Fusion: Turning First Time Guests into Fully Engaged Members of Your Church	0830745319	Regal Books		Price not yet determined.
THE3111 01	Congregational Assimilation and Retention	Olson, Lawrence O	David J. Valleskey	We believe, therefore we speak: the theology and practice of evangelism	9780810005396

Note  - this is all Olson does in a semester, plus supervising internships. Parents are paying big tuition bills or borrowing it - to keep WELS faculty from working too hard.

He is teaching an online class about doctrine this summer - extra pay. He doesn't do anything, since all the lectures for online are already recorded by Lyle Lange.

A pastor said, "Olson is harmless - everyone knows he's a heretic."

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"There is a HUGE shortage of pastors coming in the near future, and the CoP is trying to cull under-performing churches. One way to do this is vacancies. At the same time, this also eliminated under-performing pastors, of which the DPs believe there are way too many. All this was very evident at the district convention. I think at least a dozen congregations in this district are marked for closing.

The mission (sic) strategy of the WELS is to eliminate poor parishes and what they see as lousy pastors, while siphoning members over to new starts in posh area served by Golden Boy ministers. Very worldly, cut-throat, business-like, and not very Christian or Lutheran."