Thursday, May 22, 2008

Gardening and the Circle of Life

Monday and Tuesday of this week was spent being slaves to our yard. We tilled and raked, bent and dug, lifted and hoisted, planted and watered. By Tuesday night I was a mess of achiness and sunburns. On Wednesday I was hoping to regroup and work in the house doing catch-up on laundry, dishes, and computer nerdy stuff- but instead, our power was out ALL DAY! Do you understand how dependant we are on electricity? I felt like I couldn’t do anything but rub two sticks together, eat a bag of marshmallows, and lament about how we don’t have enough batteries for our five billion flashlights. Luckily the power came back on in time for us to watch the American Idol finale.

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Today it is snowing…what the!? A few days ago I was wearing my sun bonnet and sweating in the 90 degree sun, and now all my freshly planted gems are covered with a thin layer of frosty death. Some would call this global warming. Some would call this the last days of life on this earth. I call this not fair. If my plants die, there will be heck to pay.

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On a lighter note, my friend and neighbor Jennifer took this picture recently and I had to share it. There is no lovelier sight than that of sweet eggs in a nest. This picture rocks!





It also reminded me of last spring. We had hanging baskets of flowers on our porch, and a bird had decided to lay eggs in one of them. Winds out here can get pretty fierce, so I tried to set the baskets on the porch whenever there was a storm, but while we were gone one day the wind had knocked the baskets down and the eggs cracked. I was devastated. I couldn’t imagine the mama bird coming back to her little babies and discovering they had been destroyed. I know this happens a lot in life, but it doesn’t make it any less sad.



look closely and you can see the wee little eggs


Recently Addy and Landon have been catching grasshoppers and had a grand plan to dissect them. My first reaction was absolutely not! We don’t catch God’s creatures and then kill them for recreation. But the more people I talk to, the more I realize that kids do these kind of things, whether it’s burning ants with a magnifying glass, feeding a bug to a spider, or sicking a cat on a mouse. Where do we draw the line anyways? Should I let them experiment and be curious kids?


2 comments:

Its Time to Live said...

Accidently stoped by, saw the robin nest and had to leave a comment. Nice image.

Jennifer said...

Thanks for putting that picture on your blog. It's so amazing to me how birds build their nests and take care of their cute little eggs. I had forgotten about the bird that lived in you hanging plants. Maybe you'll get another nest this year. :)