Here are some fun spring-y books for May about nature. Hopefully they will motivate you to plant a garden. If you can’t plant a garden because you don’t have much space, or you know you are moving, I suggest you do container gardening. Last spring I knew I was moving so I planted tomatoes according to this video here. They turned out beautiful. They were the last thing in the moving truck and the first thing out! We put them on the patio at our new home and then enjoyed fresh tomatoes into early October.
May is also about Mother’s Day of course. I’ve compiled a separate list of books about mothers and mother figures over here in honor of that.
In honor of Mother’s Day, even though it’s over this year, I am blogging about picture books that feature mothers and mother figures. Mothering is never out of season! Inspire your sons and daughters with these amazing stories of real women who exercised their mother bear chemistry for great causes. The above book features Luba. She was a real person whose own child was taken away from her by the Nazis. She found purpose and meaning in mothering a group of orphans during WW2.
Here is the description of the book from amazon.com:
“Why am I still alive? Why was I spared?
“One night in 1944, Luba Tryszynska’s questions were answered when she found fifty-four children abandoned behind the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. Luba knew if the Nazis caught her she could be executed.
“But they are someone’s children. And they are hungry.
“Despite the mortal dangers, Luba and the women of her barracks cared for these orphans thro-ugh a winter of disease, starvation, and war.
“Here is the true story of an everyday hero and the children who gave her a reason to live.
” ‘My name is Luba Tryszynska-Frederick and this is my story. I never thought of myself as a particularly brave person, certainly not a hero. But I found that inside every human being there is a hero waiting to emerge. I never could have done what I did without the help of many heroes. This story is for them, and for the children.” ” –Luba Tryszynska-Frederick
The above book is written for 4-7 year olds to help them learn about Corrie Ten Boom. She wasn’t a biological mother but she definitely exercised her gift of motherly protection and standing up for justice when she hid Jews during WW2. She ranks right up there with Irene Sendler, below, as a hero for all mothers to follow.
If you don’t know who these women are, please go read these books. These women were amazing! Knowing what they did with what they had makes my mothering journey not so daunting.
I think most of us know the amazing Harriet Tubman below. Do you know about Mumbet, above? She was a real woman who stood up for her independence as a slave in colonial Massachusetts and therefore claimed it and was set free. She’s so astounding!
When I started blogging about Grandma Gatewood over here, I decided I wanted to make a whole blog post about a lot more picture books about moms. So voila, here you are reading it!
The picture book above is about Mahala Yousafzai’s story. She was a teen girl who fought for the right of women and girls to learn in her home country of Pakistan, despite an attempt on her life. So inspiring!
The above is a darling story about a woman who couldn’t have her own biological children, and transferred all that maternal energy to caring for baby animals for the Bronx Zoo, where her husband was a zookeeper.
This one above is based on true people: women who were Pack Horse Librarians. They traveled on horses in the Depression to bring books to children in isolated areas in rural Appalachian Kentucky.
Then here are some stories about mothering that are completely fictional but nevertheless inspiring.
Last year I was itching to have a garden but I knew we were moving. What to do? I planted some tomato starts in 5 gallon buckets according to the video above. They turned out beautiful and tasty and I felt satisfied knowing I had done what I could to be a little self-sufficient in my condition. This year I’ve planted starts in milk jugs and we will be transplanting them soon as soon I can get a cold frame bed according to Caleb Warnock’s directions in the video I linked to over here.
Last Friday I got to meet with my beloved Veggie Gals. I missed part of it because I couldn’t drive until after the threat of rain passed. It’s a long story, but the short of it is that we now have a car missing a hood. We are waiting for the insurance money to come through to fix it. Until then I get to drive a car that makes me feel like I’m in the middle of a gangster war. Anyway, the Veggie Gal lunch was full of yummy food and many book recommendations to build us up.
I love the scripture from this past week of the Come, Follow Me readings:
“Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together. And that which doth not edify is not of God, and is darkness. That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.”-Doctrine and Covenants 50:22-24
2. To instruct and improve the mind in knowledge generally, and particularly in moral and religious knowledge, in faith and holiness”
So food that edifies builds us up. It gives us nutrients that we can use for the future, instead of just energy, or empty calories. Mental food, in the form of books and other media, edifies us by building our minds so we are better instruments of God. It is meat for the brain instead of brain candy.
Here is the list of books the ladies talked about, all before I got there, boo-hoo, which I in turn recommend to you if you are looking for your next great read. I’m so grateful that one of them took the time to type up the list and email it to all of us. I highly recommend one of these!
I can’t wait to go into my scribd.com app and find out if any of these are in there and save them to read. Then whatever’s not there I’ll look for in my public library and Audible. Learn about scribd.com here and happy, edifying reading to you! The Law of the Terrain applies as much to the brain as it does to plants and to our physical bodies.
I’ve been learning a lot about health lately by teaching Paola Brown’s Teach Me Health and Homeopathy curriculum for children.
Unit 1 is all about terrain theory. It’s totally providential that just a few days after I taught one of the classes, I got to talk to this guy in these videos. The main topic of the class was the debate between Germ Theory as proposed by Louis Pasteur and Terrain Theory, as proposed by Antoine Bechamp. His name is Robert Scott Bell. He is a homeopath advocate who also does a podcast about health. I was in a store buying raw milk and I heard his voice. He was standing right in front of me talking to a store employee. I told him I recognized his voice and then found out he was there at the store (Redmond Farms Market) as the guest presenter for the store’s monthly presentation. He said he was speaking on how to let go of fear given the conditions of today.
The videos above and below have the same topic so I suppose this is the same speech. He’s so convincing that I have started calling terrain theory “The Law of the Terrain.” I have seen it in action and know it’s true. It’s no longer a theory to me, it’s a law.
If this fascinates you too I encourage you to register for Paola Brown’s Homeopathy for Moms Book Club. Go here to learn more. We start on Tues. 5/25. It’s all about the Law of the Terrain. We don’t have to be scared of germs. We have the power and birthright to nourish our terrain , with nutrient dense foods and godly thoughts. We can live in peace. As Dr. Christopher said, “There are no incurable diseases, just incurable minds.”
For the month of May I’m highlighting picture books about mother figures in honor of Mother’s Day. You will love these books!
This week I’m highlighting Grandma Gatewood Hikes the Appalachian Trail. It’s based on a true story! Grandma Gatewood’s real name is Emma Gatewood. She had eleven children. As you can imagine, her days were long and full of hard work. After her children were grown, she had a dream to hike the Appalachian Trail. No woman had ever done it before. With just a pair of canvas shoes and a light backpack, she accomplished her goal. She hiked from Georgia to Maine, eating food from the plants on the trail, drinking stream water, and sleeping on the ground. Occasionally she would get invited into a home for dinner. Her shoes got holes in them so she had to patch them with tape. She lived through a hurricane, plenty of other storms and wind, and scared off a bear. She liked the journey so much she did it all over again two years later. What an inspiring woman! I love the maps in this book. There’s so much to talk about when reading it. I give it 5 out of 5 stars. I’m going to add it to my list of picture book biographies.
Here’s some information to listen to about the jab for you know what. I haven’t fact checked it. I encourage you to listen to it and do your own research. Then prayerfully make your own decision. It’s a podcast by Nancy Campbell. Go here and listen to Episode #152.
For all you Jane Austen fans, here’s a new book about her, written by some BYU grads who are best friends! These three girlfriends took a trip to England to see where Jane lived.
I don’t know if any of you long-time loyal readers of my blog remember me lamenting years ago about the lack of movies out there about married love. That’s what I want to watch more of for my date nights at home. Hooray for married romance movies! We got this one at my local public library on DVD. I give it 4 stars out of 5.
This is a Hallmark movie, so expect some implausibility and cheese. Nevertheless, it’s worth watching to hear the marriage counsel embedded in the conversation between characters. I thought I had the whole plot figured out but I was wrong. It’s fun and light and great for a night when you don’t want to think too hard. Maybe some day I’ll come up with some discussion questions for it but I don’t want to think too hard right now :-).
I don’t know what it is about Mother’s Day, me, and car problems. Yesterday was the third Mother’s Day in the past 7 years where we have had car trouble. Oy! That plus another challenge that is too hurtful and personal for me to blog about made yesterday the second worst Mother’s Day ever. The worst was four years ago when I had a head-on car collision and totaled the family car in north Las Vegas around 9 PM. After that disaster, we had to wait over an hour for the police to come, and another hour for the tow truck. I didn’t get to bed in a hotel until about 2 and couldn’t fall asleep until 5 AM. Yeah, fun times.
But the great news is that because of the car troubles yesterday I had got to meet a fifth cousin I never knew before. And get my belief in angels reaffirmed.
All was going well except for the aforementioned issue I won’t go into. We had a beautiful time at our church meeting in the morning with the theme of Mother’s Day. One of the young speakers, about age 14, even bragged about how much his mom is a Tiger Mother, like Amy Chua. He gave a few examples that sounded OK but one was a bit brutal. Another young man said the sweetest thing about his mom. He said, “I know that Jesus is like my mom, and that gives me the most comfort than anything else.”
The man who conducted the meeting spoke of his mother and how even though she’s 5 feet even, and weighs 100 lbs, she can take him out in martial arts. He also said he loves his mother-in-law, even though he argues with her. She was sitting in the congregation. In the next meeting, which was right after, she told the women, “For the record, I don’t argue with my son-in-law, I’m smarter than that!” Funny!
Later that day we embarked on a long drive out to a rural area to have dinner with my parents in their vacation cabin on a mountain. I was feeling on a high because of the previous day when I got to have a day out with like-minded mom friends, doing something super healthful and beneficial for our families. I got to hear gems of wisdom and just went home feeling so loved and invigorated on Saturday night. Then I got to cap it off with a Zoom meeting with my parents and siblings and a great date night movie.
Despite another issue that came up on the way to the cabin that definitely gave me cause to complain, but for which I bit my tongue instead, and did not complain, we had an overall lovely time at the cabin. Dinner was Hawaiian haystacks. Then I got to have a Zoom meeting with my out of nest children: my missionary son, my oldest child/son, and my married daughter, all at the same time with my parents and mother-in-law in the room. I told my oldest who joined us from Texas over Zoom that he had “one stop shopping for wishing his ‘Happy mother’s day!’ greetings to his mother, and both grandmothers.
I also got to see my two adorable grandbabies in Zoom and hear the two-year-old repeatedly announce how cool it was that he could make a tow truck out of a phone charger base and a giant clothes pin that my daughter bought on etsy to use for building forts with play silks. (What?! Such is the strange imagination of little children. He is a true Shumway child who would rather play with random objects than toys.) Little did I know how prescient my grandson’s exclamations were. I got to show to my mother and my mother-in-law the pictures and audio files I had uploaded into familysearch.org for them, onto their personal pages. I got some gifts I asked for, for which I am super excited about. I have no shame in asking my husband and children for the exact gifts that I want for Mother’s Day, birthday, and Christmas.
I remembered to get a group picture and then we left before it got too dark, much to my disappointment, as we didn’t get to play the board game I brought. Anyway, we left before it was dark, which was hard because I’m a night owl. My fun, childish party side of me wanted to just stay and play games and talk all night with my mom and mother in law on coconut oil and diet and preventing Alzheimer’s. The taskmaster, disciplined, boring, practical mother side of me knew it would be better to leave and not get home when we can hardly stagger into the house out of the car after the 1 + hour drive because we are so tired. (I’ve had plenty of Sunday family visits, for decades, where we stay past ten so I speak from experience.) I have a son who has work on Sunday (boo- having to work on Mother’s Day!) and I wanted to get home to see him too before he went to bed.
Let me tell you, angels are real. Angel mothers are real. On the way home, our engine overheated. We pulled over and some young men, Good Samaritans, stopped to help us. They were driving in a family caravan of cars, with their parents driving behind them. They determined that the lid on the coolant tank, popped off, causing us to lose coolant and have the engine overheat. Even though it was late and dark, they insisted on driving back to town (a 15 minute drive) to buy some coolant for us. Then they came back to put it in. They refused any pay for the coolant.
We thanked them profusely, said good bye, said a grateful prayer of thanks to Heavenly Father for these angels, and started driving. After a few hundred feet, the car was still smoking from under the hood so we stopped again. This time the dad of the two young men stopped to help. We explained the problem, that it wasn’t fixed by adding coolant, and that we should leave the car there and have the car towed to a fix-it place. So we needed a ride. He and his wife offered to drive us home, on the way to their home.
Complete strangers! But they felt OK about giving us a ride and we felt OK about accepting. So we had a pleasant ride home in a warm car visiting with what turned out to be relatives. I found out a the mom is my fifth cousin on my Dad’s side. We’re both descended from Zera Pulsipher, a Utah pioneer. This woman was an amazing woman to have taught her sons to be so helpful to help us. An angel mother.
I definitely felt the hand of God in this encounter. These people were angels in human form. They helped us when we were in deep need. I hope we can each be angels for each other and help each other in loving kindness and service. I’m learning that whenever I feel sad or alone, I can look out for people who are sad and lonely and help them. Just doing that eases the sadness and loneliness.
The other great thing about this whole challenge was that it put the hurt I had felt earlier in the day in perspective. The car trouble and the rescue allowed me to put my pain in a much bigger place. It was cold in that car and dark. It would not have been fun to have to wait for my dad to drive down the mountain to come get us, and then have to drive back up the mountain, and then figure out how to get us all home the next day. I just felt so grateful that we could still be going home, thanks to these angels. It feels so grand knowing that kind people, Good Samaritans, are out there. They just are, no matter the doom and gloom of the negative news outlets. So I am feeling blessed, it was indeed the best and worst Mother’s Day ever.
Tree of Life Mothering 