Ted's seeds

this post is for jambaloney's step-dad Ted. i originally wrote this post a few days ago and had planned to put it up after the post about jambaloney's mom. but jambaloney wanted to get a fishing post up. so i held off on posting this.

and now, Ted is burying his father today. our thoughts are with him, as are our prayers. we are trying to send healing and comforting vibes to our step-dad today. we are thinking of you Ted. and thanking the Lord again for how glad we are that you are in our lives.

Ted did a very wonderful thing for us. and for all of the kids in Ted's and Liz's combined families. Ted came into some money on his birthday and decided to give all of the kids a present. for us, it was a Godsend.

last January, after only being here for a month, and on the eve of our 10 year anniversary, our sump-pump failed and our basement flooded. we thought that we were super smart by putting all of our mementos, trinkets, photo albums, letters, cards, journals, etc. into plastic bins and storing it all in our crappy little basement. and it flooded. during a horrible rain/sleet storm with 40mph winds. jambaloney had gone into town that day and had taken the basement key with him. looking back - i should have just kicked the basement door in. but i prayed and prayed that everything was fine. when jambaloney got home that day at about 4pm, he went down to the basement and opened it up and all of our plastic bins were floating in about 4 feet of water. tipped over and in some cases upside down (needless to say, jambaloney made sure we now have 2 working sump-pumps and a hand-crank pump!).

jambaloney started dragging the bins out and dumping the water out of them and then dragging them around to the porch where i unwrapped everything and assessed the damage. there wasn't much we could save. all of our cards and lovenotes were destroyed. a ton of our photos. a ton of mementos. it was heart breaking. i was trying to keep my cool and was only crying a little bit - but i totally lost it when we got to the bin of my saved seeds. i had been saving seeds from my garden for over 4 years. i had meticulously groomed and cared for certain heirloom/organic varieties of probably close to 300 different kinds of seeds. and had carefully dried them out and saved them. i read a hundred blogs and books of all kinds to learn how to do it properly with all of the seeds. i had beautiful herb seeds, onion seeds, cucumber, cantaloupe, carrot, beet, radish, tomatoe, kale, chard, etc. - you name it - i tried to grow it in our city backyard - and anything that did well, i saved some for seed.

anyway - our seed stash was destroyed. so was my heart. i lost it. and i can clearly remember a soaked jambaloney trying to comfort me. both of us on the porch in the freezing cold rain, neither of us wearing coats or boots for over 4 hours and soaked through to the bone. i couldn't think of what we would do...however would we replace all of those seeds? we were starting back at zero!

enter Ted to the rescue. because he is so generous, he decided that on HIS birthday, he would give gifts to all of his kids - imagine, eh? and that's what he did. and when we received Ted's gift we knew exactly what we would do - we would replace all of our seeds! thank you so much Ted - you have no idea how much we appreciate that gift!

since the spring, i have been carrying those seeds around in a big bag that i drew on called "Ted's seeds". and of course i have no pictures of it. it finally lost one of it's handles around the end of june. so from then on i have been toting the seeds around in this blue bin:




that bag labelled "Ted's seeds" may be gone - but those seeds are still around, seeds will be saved from seeds already planted, and they will always be called "Ted's seeds"!

just to show how generous he really is, take a look at the beautiful bird house with a welcome note that Ted built for us with his grandson before we even left for cape breton!







here is where it lives. and yes there are a family of birds living in it.

as well, check out my beautiful bench. Ted had a tree fall on his lake-front property and cut some pieces of it and thought some pieces would make great benches. and he gave us one. jambaloney came up with the idea to use up-turned tree roots as legs. i love my bench!!!






all in all, we would just like to thank Ted for his generosity. we have a seed store that will get us through years, and by saving the seeds from vegetables and fruits that we plant from those original seeds, ensures that we will continue to have seeds all throughout our future - and our children's future too, God willing.

out of a horrible tragedy came a hero to the rescue. thank you soo much Ted!

Ted, our thoughts and prayers are with you on this most difficult day. we love you Ted!