Plant Your Seeds

The single greatest gift human beings have ever been given is the ability to hope and envision the future we want. Putting seeds in the ground is an excellent exercise that we gardeners do on a regular basis What do you hope for and dream of? What are you planting this year?

Transcript

Hello folks.

So today I did probably the biggest act of faith and belief in the future that a person can do.

I put some tomato seeds in trays and some tomato seedlings in the garden.

I planted lettuce seeds.

I planted cucumber seeds.

The act of putting a seed in the ground is really mind-boggling.

If you think about it,

You have this inert little thing that looks like a pebble that you are told will grow such and such a plant in such and such a time according to some words on the back of the package.

Theoretically.

It's all theoretical.

And what we do when we garden every year is we plan out rows and rotations based on what we believe is going to happen.

It's all belief.

And sometimes it pans out.

Most of the time it pans out.

My snap peas always pan out.

But some years we have drought.

In some years we have bugs.

You know,

In some years the tomatoes just fail.

They get blight or whatever.

And we still plant anyway.

The farmers in the Midwest are sowing corn this week and next.

And they do it every year.

Even though last year there was flooding and fires and half of the crops were lost.

They're out there this year on their tractors planting.

There's something amazing about the human spirit that I find every time somebody plants something I remember this.

Humans can envision the future.

Maybe not the exact literal future that's going to happen but we can plan ahead and we can think I want this to happen.

I want to eat snap peas in 60 days.

And so I put the snap peas in the ground and I water them.

With the expectation and the hope more than anything else the hope that in 60 days I will have snap peas to dip into my ranch dressing.

And more often than not it comes to fruition with a little work and a little knowledge and a lot of hope.

I have two stout little billy goat kids this year.

And I've weathered them.

Which is where you neuter them.

They've been weathered and I am training them up to be pack goats.

And now they won't see a pack saddle for two years.

They're too small.

You have to let them grow.

But every day I go out there and their names are Teddy and Todd.

And I go out there and I give them treats and scratches and pets and love them up and teach them to stand still and let me pick up their feet and play with their ears and scratch them all over their backs everywhere the pack saddle is going to go.

I do that while they're 10 pounds so that when they are 250 pounds and ready for the pack frame it's not going to be scary or new.

They're going to know how to stand still.

And I'm doing this in the hope of the future.

I hope to take them camping with me someday because pack goats are a blast and I've had them before and my hope in the future is to have pack goats again.

We all have things that we hope.

And as human beings that is our greatest gift we can hope for the future and we can make plans to try and get there.

Now I don't know if Teddy and Todd are going to end up being pack goats.

I don't know if something will come up or one of them God forbid will get sick or have lameness and injury in his leg.

But my hope is this vision of the future of what I want and what I want for them.

The life of a pack goat is fun and interesting and they get to go to all kinds of fun places with you and I want that for them.

During the Renaissance there was a saying that the artist could see something in the marble and to everyone else it's just a slab of rock.

But to a sculptor they look at the marble and they see a form they see what they want to create.

When I was working with racehorses right off the track I heard a lot of oh a racehorse can't do this can't do that can't do the other because people couldn't see past the horse galloping around the track with his nose straight out with the racing silks on with the jockey up they couldn't see past that.

But I could.

It used to infuriate me.

I trained a horse for cattle work and everyone goes oh he can't work cows he's a thoroughbred he's a racehorse he doesn't belong here and gosh darn if he is not a fantastic ranch horse he's still owned by the person I sold him to and he is invaluable to that rancher.

There is a program called the Mustang Makeover where they have a hundred days to take a fully wild horse and turn it into a riding horse and they get to pick the discipline that they do.

And it's amazing you see horses turn barrels and jump and do dressage which is where they just dance.

It's the most incredible thing and this horse was some scrawny wild scraggly thing that was running across the shale in the canyons a hundred days before.

And people can do that because they have vision.

They don't look at the horse in front of them and think this is all they're ever going to be they think well if I brush out his mane if I get him to where I can touch him and pick his feet up and fix those feet if I get him to where I can put a saddle on him maybe we'll get somewhere.

In our lives we hear a lot of negativity a lot of you can't because you shouldn't because you shouldn't even try.

It's not worth it.

Go do something else.

We hear that all the time and if everyone believed that and listened to that we would not have any innovation and our species has moved forward to where it is because people are very bad at listening to other people's doubt.

We are bad at taking no for an answer.

Thankfully human beings move forward by not listening to that but by following their vision single-mindedly to the point of ignoring everything else.

We are very good at chasing an idea down.

And I challenge you to think of what in your life have you been told you can't do.

Is it limiting you now?

Is there something you can do about this?

What is your slab of marble?

What is your Mustang horse?

What is your small goat?

What vision do you have for the future?

If you think about where you want to be in five years in ten years where is that?

What does it look like?

What can you imagine for yourself?

Even if you don't get there what do you imagine your life to look like?

What do you hope and what do you dream?

What seeds do you want to put in the ground?

Do you want cucumbers or do you want snap peas?

It's your life and you're in the driver's seat.

It's your garden,

Farm,

Barn,

Marble world.

Decide what you want.

We are discouraged so much from dreaming and hoping and planning for the future.

We're told just go along with what you have right now.

Be grateful,

Be humble.

And that's a good thing.

But that doesn't better us.

That doesn't further us.

Whatever you're hungry for plant it.

Even if it doesn't come up.

The exercise of putting a seed in the ground,

Figuratively or literally,

Is the purpose.

Being able to dream of the future and take steps to reach it.

Even if you don't,

That's the point of the exercise.

That's what counts.

Keep dreaming and doing and hoping and believing and trying.

Because the entire world is going to tell you that you can't.

It's your job to believe that you can.

And plant your seeds.

Thank you for listening.

Have a beautiful day.

Reviews

I can hear 👂 your rooster 🐓 in the background lol 😂 :33

Thank you!❤️

Loved this talk! And the rooster crowing in the background! I am planting my seeds … I am believing in the possibilities..I Am not too old .. I am not going to compare . I am healing from surgery so ..going slower than I’d like with my garden ( and music) this month ,and the weeds are taller than ever .. yet I am picturing my future life and garden exactly as I’d like . And that I can share it with others is a big goal of mine. Thank you! Bookmarked and sharing !! I’d love to meet pack goats 🐐! Best to you 💫 dear gardener!!!! 💛👩‍🌾🌱🥒🫛🥦🥕🍆💜