A Surprise Underneath All Those Leaves!

First off –  I forgot to add this link on my last post to Chanosos – If you wanna see what the place looks like go ahead and take a looksee  http://www.255downtown.com/chanosos/

Now on to today!

A Surprise Underneath All Those Leaves!

I just raked up the big garden at the rectory. Tonnes of leaves! I can’t believe we took away a couple of truckloads of leaves in the fall with that many leaft there now. I am just thrilled with the perennials. So many plants have already sprouted and are on there way to growth. It was a great thrill to pull away a big clump of composting leaves to find a strong green shoot below. As I was at it, my mind drifted to last year this time. It was Easter already. We were celebrating all of that new growth as a great sign of the resurrection.

I also learned that cleaning out that garden is a fine job. You see for the past 7 springs we have had a gardener on staff at the rectory to do that work. He was very efficient and very hard working. He was also a migrant. He travelled to work here each spring from the east. He would tell stories while he worked of his homeland. He once told me that the plants in his homeland would have to push another foot and a half in Early April to poke through the snow. It also became clear to me that people work much longer where he is from. Indeed, when he came on staff he was 82 and is now nearing 90! In the meantime his wife would also come and join the staff as cook and part-time bottle washer. She too was a brilliant help and brought great joy to the parsonage. What is that you say? Did we fire them? Heavens NO! For some reason they did not get away from the homeland this year and they are  instead working steadily at crafts in his shed and baked bread in her kitchen and apparently once in a while they take a minute or two to sweep a little snow off the steps when it falls.  We are hoping to make them an offer in a couple of weeks to come to join the rectory staff in the fall. There will be lots of leaves to rake then as well. By that time he will be 90. She will be 76! We’ll see.

Of course the gardener is my Dad. And we miss him a lot this year along with the other important part of our staff – the cook – my Mom! This is the first spring since 1995 that we have not had them travel to see us. Twice to London, once to Labrador City and seven times to here. 

Funny what you uncover when you are raking leaves isn’t it?