Something About Apples and the Tree They Fell From
Am I interrupting my series on insomnia to interject a Father’s Day post? Yes, yes I am. It’s my janky little blog and I can do what I want with it.
Awhile ago, I briefly mentioned the pontoon boat my dad made out of scrap styrofoam insulation. I asked him if he could find any pics of it and he was able to scrounge up this one. I want to say the platform was an old table top, but I don’t quite remember. Here it is strapped to the car in all of its lake-ready glory.
My parents were missionaries who lived off donations so my sisters and I didn’t have much, but we did know how to have fun with and appreciate what we had. Which might be the best thing you can teach your kids.
Alas, there are no pictures of this, but when my parents lived in the village, my dad made several pieces of furniture ranging from a futon to cabinets. This is impressive enough on its own. But he did it without the aid of power tools. I can’t even imagine. I was too young to remember or appreciate it and was only informed of this feat when the Bear and I bought our first house and I got the furniture making bug. “Oh, yeah, your dad made furniture for our house in the village using hand tools.” WHAT?!
He also has a deep love for digging (ok, I didn’t inherit this, I’m merely attempting to sketch his character). While visiting some new friends on a cross country trip State-side, our host casually mentioned that he needed to dig trenches for an irrigation system. That was all the invitation my dad needed. They spent the next day bonding over manual labor. Also State-side, my parents lived on some land that was slightly sloped in areas and my dad decided that would be an ideal place to dig a cave so he could grow mushrooms. They moved before he got it to a point where growing mushrooms was feasible and I tragically don’t have any pictures of it, but I love that he made himself a literal man cave. Overseas, he noticed some unused land with a stream on it and got permission to clear some of it, dam the stream, and dig a fish pond. Just because it brought him joy and meaning to make something useful for someone else. The pics below are from the Christmas that the Bear and I went to visit my parents overseas about a million years ago. Observe, if you will, the Bear and my dad, the fish pond, my dad swinging a machete.
Last but not least, my dad is also an expert gardener (also something I did not inherit). His secret? Compost. When my parents came to visit after we bought our first house, my dad noticed the tragic lack of a compost pile. He couldn’t allow his son-in-law to continue to be deprived of the joy of compost, so he proceeded to build a pile and went so far as to go around to our neighbors with the greenest lawns and ask if he could mow their yards and take the clippings. In Texas. In August. I remember him spending hours tending the various compost piles in our backyard when we lived State-side. My middle sister once asked him what he drove him to do that and he said (ok, not a direct quote, no one remembers that, but this is at least the gist), “When life gets hard and ugly, working on compost reminds me of how we can take things that have been discarded, that no longer have value and turn them into something that nourishes new life.”