Monthly Archives: June 2025

Deep and Wide: A Muddled Reflection

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Welcome back, my beloveds! We’ve had an exciting weekend! It was our church’s annual “church in the park” where we take over the local parks band shell and hold our service by the beach. Traditionally, we have a baptism service and bbq lunch with fun activities for the afternoon. This time, eleven people committed to living a life for Christ through baptism. The fun part was that our staff had to wade out in to Lake Ontario … and it was anything but calm. June makes it a little chilly out there and the waves were coming in hard. Poor little youth leader; she was struggling to keep herself a float, let alone dunk others under! Yet, all survived. And it had me musing…

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Okay, but before I get to that, I need to premise it with another trigger. We have been enjoying watching our little grand baby grow (he’s six month’s already!) and this weekend he got to hang out in our inflatable kiddie pool… well, sort of. Hose water is still slightly cool for his chubby little legs. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Hanging out at the farm with grandma means Alexa is playing Veggie Tale Songs. I tried “traditional Sunday School songs” but that led to crazy war propaganda from the USA and nothing I recognized. Veggie Tales was it.

Yada yada yada…. all that to tell you that waves and water were my thoughts this weekend… which had me thinking about how many traditional hymns and songs have water, waves and being “washed” in fountains and rivers. Are you thinking of a few? Anyhow, I settled on Deep and Wide. A traditional Sunday school song all about (what I thought was) how deep and wide God’s love for us is. Turns out, other people have different thoughts. So here’s what I found.

The original “Deep and Wide” song was written by a Canadian Salvation Army officer named Sidney E. Cox. The original had three verses. You can find it here. Mr. Cox was saddened by the fact that the verses were essentially lost due to the song’s popularity as a children’s diddy. And the actions? Well, that was frowned upon too. Ha Ha… just realized this was originally printed in the Salvation Army’s War Cry Documents… it’s a war song too! He’s Canadian at least. Nonetheless, I think the song emphasizes how vast and wide God’s love for us is. Since depth and height are infinite in opposite directions, it’s a pretty good description, I thought.

The Original Deep and Wide with 3 verses printed from Salvation Army War Cry

Other thoughts on the song, however, reverberated with the idea of water, river and flowing. Like the waves of Lake Ontario, a crashing wave can be quite cleansing! Ezekiel 47:9 describes a river flowing bringing life to all it touches. So true a foundation to teach our little ones! And so, as we begin the summer season, and you hit the beach and get bowled over by a wave, think about Deep and Wide! Or perhaps your vacation takes you hopping through European cruises with great fountains bringing fresh water … flowing deep and wide!

So that’s my thoughts for this week… and hope it gets stuck in your head all week. Some veggies will be proud, even if Sidney is unimpressed.

The Truth Behind Country Living: Weeds and the Reality of Free Range Chickens

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We were doing so well. Spring had us thinking we were ahead of the game this year. Things looked cleaned up and projects were on task. Sigh. Fail. Again. You know those great Instagram posts of the pretty summer .porch with chippy paint and rusty pails with random chicken eggs in a rainbow of colours next to a few beautiful wildflowers that look so romantic? It’s a lie. Country people will tell you the chippy paint is because we have no time for painting and we forgot the pail so it got rusty in the rain and your wild free-ranging chickens lay random eggs everywhere now instead of neatly in the nest boxes and it’s a daily game of hide and seek to collect them… and the wildflowers are really weeds that grow like crazy and take over any available spot except for the places you sowed the wild flower seeds hoping the pollinators would be happy that you thought of them….

Romantic? It’s a lie I generated with A.I!! Pretty though, isn’t it?

There are always two sides of the story friends. I love my house. I love my chick birds. I love my life and the adventures it brings. Yet, today, I am feeling a little bit on the other side. The dream has been crushed and it’s overwhelming and hard and not fun anymore. Part of my trouble is my own head. I get inside it and romanticize. Now don’t get me wrong… we do the work. We try. The hubby does his best, and I have good intentions, but most days I get home from work too exhausted to care. Everybody is safe and fed and clean and that’s enough. Yup, we keep it real here at mittonmusings.

I watered the “garden”. It is now a patch of thick thistle weeds and grass with a few stagnant tomato and pepper plants. I have 4 strawberry plants flowering which likely the wild birds will get before we get any fruit. Peas, beans, and any form of salad ingredient have been snatched up by the chickens and stubby bits of cucumber vines are choked out by more weeds. It’s a disaster! And I am sad. We tried to pull the thistles. Now I think I am going to try chaos gardening. Who cares. Let’s see what grows among the weeds.

I suppose thistles can be pretty too. Perspective.
Photo by Orhan Akbaba on Pexels.com

New found friends have a beautiful garden. Perfect rows. Ne’re a weed to be seen. He has blueberries! Blueberries! I didn’t think they grew down here, only up north, where it was colder. Okay, so they are retired and spend all day out there. Okay, they did research and planned and dug and tilled and worked for the last who knows how many years to achieve this greatness. How the blueberries were dug in trenches, fertilized and babied for four years before a single bloom. Still. I am grumpy there is no country property fairy. Instagram lies.

Ah friend. Is my musing simply a rambling of complaints? Partially. Hey, it’s my blog, I am allowed to vent. Still, it’s self talk as well. A reminder that God never promised life would be easy. We were chatting the other day about the angel who stood guard at the gate of the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve got kicked out. Do you think they “drove by” every now and then to see him? To wish for the paradise? Or did they keep far away, ashamed to ever cross the barrier? Warning their children like Peter rabbit’s mom at McGregor’s garden gate… that’s where disaster struck, kids. Stay far away from the edge.

So what’s my point? I suppose it is simply this. Life here in our fallen world is harsh. Things are not fair. Time steals. Instagram really does lie. A.I is going to make it harder and harder to decipher Truth. Our children’s children will continue to struggle. Yet God is bigger and stronger than anything we can complain about. Weeds choke out wisdom. The Bible says so. Things get squeezed out and our minds get infiltrated with doubts and struggles and sadness. We go through seasons, like the natural world does. Eventually, something grows. Perhaps the wild flower weeds are the only thing, but it’s still growth. My chickens have been well fed by their foraging. It’s all about perspective. I’m learning. And I guess that’s where I must focus for this week. Thanks for coming along on the journey, friends. Let’s meet again soon to encourage one another one more time.

The Surprising Science Behind Dandelion Survival

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Another week… and finally some nicer weather! It’s still a little chilly, but at least the sun was out today. Alas, the dandelions have turned into their little puff ball stage. Gone are the yellow rivers along the curbs, and a snowy, grey blanket has replaced them. If you’ve been following along, we’ve been chatting about the humble weed, and this week is no exception. And we’ll begin with a cool “fun fact”.

Cool.

Did you know that dandelions are “hydrophobic”? Which, for you non-science type folks, means “afraid of water”. Afraid of water? It’s a plant. Sounds a little sus. That means a little off in case you don’t speak teenager. Anyway… it is true. Each dandelion seed is attached to a tiny parachute like structure (called a pappus). The pappus has little hairs, and when the tiny hairs of the pappus are submerged in water, they close up, trapping a water droplet inside, essentially rendering the parachutes dry. Those little puff balls, when dipped in water, do not soak it up; they will come out pretty much dry again. If you want some proof, here’s a little video link to check it out! Dipping Dandelions. Pretty cool, eh?

And since that little puffball can resist a pretty significant downpour or dunking, it might get picked up and blown away. That “wishing flower” can send off upwards of 200 seeds, which have a germination rate of about 90%. Which is likely why we see so many of those yellow flowers blooming again! A pretty successful “weed”. And resilient too. We talked about that, already though (go check it out if you haven’t read the last few weeks of our “study”.)

So let’s muse about it, shall we? Resisting a downpour. Unable to be “wet blankets”. Not harmed by a little outside interference. Sounds pretty protected if you ask me. I’ve been learning about our Godly protection lately. Harnessing His Power to resist the downpours that come our way. Did you know you can be “resistant” too? You have the cool ability to say, nope, not today, Satan. Go ahead, dunk me under if you want… but I am coming out dry on the other side, and then I am gonna spread my wishing flower of 200 plus witness stories, Lord willing! And 90% of those stories will have an impact: and then there will be more of us to resist! Satan and his evil schemes don’t stand a chance. Dandelions seem to keep popping up year after year, no matter how much weed killer you might spray. We just get encouraged and float over from someone else’s wishes.

Spread a little sunshine, my friends!

So stand tall, my little puff balls! Resist the downpour. Fight back and make wishes. Spread a little sunshine and happiness to the next lawn over. Or float on the breeze and go as far as the wind will take you. Then take root, and pop up with glory to smile at another spring! Blessings, dear ones!