o me of little faith

It's been a beatiful few days, warm and spring-like for the most part. The kind of weather that allows me to thrive. Over the weekend, I began building vegetable garden beds in my backyard. I've never had a vegetable garden in my adult life, and I only vaguely remember helping my parents with the one we had when I was about five.

This vegetable planting has resulted from the confluence of several items. While the idea of a vegetable garden has always appealed to me, I've never had anyone who could instruct me as to what to do. (Given my natural knack for killing plants - ten, yes, TEN azalea bushes - this is an absolute necessity.) Nor have I had anyone willing to help with the manual labor of gardening on a regular basis. Thankfully, mercifully, Erin has taken on both of these roles. Brave girl. Couple this with my new-found focus on vegetables as a consequence of giving up meat for Lent, and suddenly a vegetable garden seems like an absolute necessity!

But here's the thing: seeds are small. REALLY small. Tiny. But plants...plants are big. Plants are hearty, leafy, fruitful. We started planting these tiny seeds in miniscule trays that barely hold an ounce of soil. We buried a single seed in each one and covered it with a few granules of wet dirt. All I could think was, "No way." Erin said, "Trust me. They'll grow." I shook my head. "No way." I mean, those things are tiny. "They'll get lost in there."

That was four days ago. This morning, there was life where there was no life before: little sprouts of green as my lettuce had begun to germinate and sprout.

Maybe I should reconsider how much faith I really have...