If only I had taken pictures

Last fall Cliff offered to plow my garden, and I turned him down; I think I had some harebrained experiment in mind that would not have required plowing.  After letting the idea hibernate all winter, I decided it wasn't a good one and told Cliff I wanted my garden plowed after all.  
When the spring thaw came, the garden area turned into a quagmire for a couple of weeks.  Then we started getting rain every other day.  Cliff was willing to plow, but the ground needed to dry out a lot.  I'd watch the forecast, knowing that all we needed was four or five days with no rain: our sandy soil drains really fast.  But the rains kept coming.  Thursday, after getting home from our motorcycle ride, Cliff suggested it might be possible to plow; the only way to find out was to hook up to a plow and try it.  
He took the little John Deere (I used to call it the Jap Deere because it was made in Japan, but some people felt that was a racist expression) and hooked up to a plow the size of Texas.  Oh yes, he had high hopes.  He managed to make it about fifteen feet before the little tractor spun out.  In its defense, it doesn't have the proper tires for such work; turf tires were never meant to bite into the dirt.  If I'd had my camera, you would have loved the video of this scene, which was reminiscent of "the little engine that could".  But that's rather like a fisherman telling about the one that got away, isn't it?    
I helped Cliff unhook the plow, which he left in the garden while he went after a bigger tractor:  Since the big Oliver is in an eternal state of being restored, he chose our brother-in-law's Mahindra, which was definitely up to the task.  
A big tractor in a small garden is pretty tricky, especially if there are trees and a fence at one end and a strawberry bed at the other.  I stood by, letting Cliff know when to raise the plow each time he approached the strawberries, and in less than ten minutes, the plowing was done.  
When we first went out to do the plowing, I had suggested Cliff make the garden six feet wider.  As I stood there watching the dirt turn over, though, I remembered how much it taxed my knees last year to try and keep up with the gardening and told him to forget the expansion.  
The garden is presently covered by six inches of snow.  But at least when the weather is right, I can get out there with the tiller.  Cliff's job is done.

miscellaneous thoughts and explanations

In a comment on the previous entry, I read this: "I would imagine any farmer would love to have someone plow for them."

Not necessarily; farmers don't plow these days. That's how Cliff ended up with two huge plows last weekend for free... they were sitting on farmers' properties, unused for years. Farmers practice minimum tillage farming these days to prevent erosion.

So if someone allows Cliff to plow on their property, they'll simply be doing it as a favor. I'm not sure, it could even affect government grants they get. We do have a couple of acres that needs to be replanted, right behind the house. I don't know whether that's enough to break in the Oliver or not.

In the final episode of my mother's story, she mentioned being baptized at age thirteen. Since I was raised a Christian and grew up familiar with the various denominations and many of their differences, I don't stop to think about the fact that folks from other cultures don't know all the subtle (and no-so-subtle) differences in the denominations, of which there must be thousands.

Mike V., a Jew, left this comment: "I thought they baptize you as a baby but it looks like she was 13,probably a different custom in your church."

Mike is the first Jewish person I've known personally, so he'll forgive me, I'm sure, for forgetting the fact that not everybody in the world has a Christian background.

Catholics, Lutherans, United Church of Christ, Methodists (I think), and undoubtedly scores of churches baptize infants (and also older converts) by sprinkling water on their heads.

Baptists, the Christian Church, Assemblies of God, and the Church of Christ in which I was raised (and no doubt hundreds of others) believe a person comes to a knowledge of Jesus, is convicted of his sins, confesses those sins, and is then taken to a body of water (or a baptistry inside the church, these days) and fully immersed in the water, because that's how it was done in the New Testament. I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything here, please understand. I simply want to explain the different methods.

This got me thinking how the confusing the Christian realm must seem to outsiders. Why all the splits and denominations? I was raised not to call the Church of Christ a denomination, but to call it "the Church". All the others were considered denominations, but not us.

Sigh.

I comfortably go from one denomination to the other these days; I love, and am very comfortable worshipping with, the Baptists. My actual preference (and membership) is in the Assemblies of God (yes folks, the one Jimmy Swaggart was associated with). But I accept others, even some that many Christians call "cults".

This is as deep into a religious discussion as I've ever gotten on my blog, and I hope I haven't stepped on anybody's toes or hurt any feelings. That certainly wasn't my intention. Feel free to comment, but if things get too controversial or heated, I'll close comments. I've don't care to argue about religion. Personally, I'm pretty open-minded. "Live and let live" applies.