Yes - I understand completely with everything you said above. I turned 61 July 1st and am feeling my age these days. I live on the family farm, 20 acres and the things I do here have changed considerably since I moved here 22 years ago! No more huge vegetable garden or flower gardens, keeping the grass cut and the weeds out of the beds closest to my house are all that I can keep up with these days. I used to get help from teenagers but have found that no help is better than bad help... there were the good workers in the past but the bad has outweighed the good and I have given up looking for help anymore.

I grow dwarf lotus in smaller tubs now, I used to grow the large varieties in full sized kiddie pools, dragging them on what I call my "lotus sled" attached to the back of my tractor to put them in my minimally heated (35 - 40 degree) garage over the winter. I have plenty of Tree Frogs that lay eggs in the containers and there are lots of tadpoles living with my lotus too! I sell the smaller tubs of blooming lotus at a farmer's market that is an hour's drive from here - I regularly sell out, and yesterday not only did I sell out, but got future orders for four more tubs for next weekend!

Just remember that you are one person and you can only do so much - - - one thing at a time. If it doesn't get done today (or tomorrow or the next week...) it WILL be there when you finally get around to doing it! And always appreciate the work that you have accomplished!

Thanks Jeb! I have a 300 gallon inground tank that used to be a lotus bog. Since there was no drainage out of it, I think it just got "sick" from all the fertilizers I put in it over the 15 years and it died. Now it's just sitting there, covered with duckweed, but at least the frogs seem to like it. (green frogs). I would love to move all that dirt out and put new in, and start over with the Egyptian lotus that grew so beautifully all those years.. I do have a miniature lotus in a pot in a 100 gallon stock tank. So what size pots do you grow your miniatures in? Do you keep them in the little swimming pools? Do you just keep thinning them every year to get more to sell? How do you get them to the markets? That's nice that you can do that. And I'm with you about just mowing the grass. We forget that our 35 acres of fields and woods keeps growing and growing......right up to the edge of the yard. DH is kept busy mowing trails all through it so I can ride my raised golf cart around to enjoy nature. My knees are really bad. Wish I had a decent gardener for not too much money who could do all these things, and still have them to enjoy without the work! I'll be 72 in January. I can't imagine being a farmer who's getting older and having to continue to do sooooo much work to plant, harvest, store, sell. I need to learn to be happy with what I've got.........but it's not always easy. Oh......I was just outside and my miniature lotus is ready to bloom. And we are getting zucchini from pots in the back yard, and cucumbers and beans and hopefully tomatoes from the garden...........and have a nice fence with a solar electric fence around it........so I need to concentrate on being more grateful. Good luck to you Jeb, and thanks for commiserating with me and reminding me to be appreciative of things that DO get done. :)

Catherine's, love the way you express yourself. You make your gardening sound so interesting. 🤗. Dena, (ARUM)

Thank you Dena. That was a very sweet thing to say. :)