To Water or to Dig…

I went strolling out for my morning garden tour with no particular mission in mind.  But when I got to the potato patch I wondered… shall I water these sad looking plants--some yellowing, some clearly dead, others chipper and green and trying to thrive despite their want of regular watering--or shall I dig…

Bracing myself for disappointment I grabbed a hand rake and scritched at the surface of some of the withered lifeless vines…when what should appear but a lovely dusty potato!!! YIPEE!

I scritched and scratched some more, and more potatoes--whites ones and red ones, even one JUMBO one (there’s always one fellow that taps into the water just right and busts his buttons outgrowing the rest).  And soon I was hunting down the pitchfork and digging deeper to turn up buried treasure.

Wonderful hot sweaty work it was in the morning sun.  But I turned about a square yard of that bed and I have potatoes for many potato salads to come!

The moral of the story is, don’t judge a garden or a life by its surface.  Fruit may not be visible but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.  Dig a little.  Get to know what’s beneath the surface of that foliage, that face, that lifestyle….You may be in  for a surprise! 

-------------

In other news this week…

• We watched rampaging Redcoats (aka the RCMP Musical Ride)

• motored across the lake for a swim…

• beheld my Japanese Anemone in bloom  (I love it!  Thanks Nola!)

• Walked the neighborhood admiring neighbor’s dahlias
  

 

• and documented the wonder of being together…

for just a little longer…

while this bedazzlingly warm and dry summer fleets sweetly away…but not without notice!

--LS

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…” Eccl. 3:1

Little mop, who made thee?

 

She came ambulating along with mincing footfall across the breakfast table unannounced, beelining for nowhere in particular, a stirring ‘crumb’ of a creature. A little mop automaton, interrupting our conversation by her singular appearance.  Where had she come from?  The cereal box? Yikes!  The bouquet of blooming oregano? (hopefully!)  Where was she headed?  She didn’t know.  But her likeness to a miniature mop spared her from being squashed on the spot! 

What a marvel, this tiny creation.  How endlessly creative is our God.  I am reminded of this charming poem by William Blake:

Little lamb, who made thee?
   Does thou know who made thee,
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?

   Little lamb, who made thee?
   Does thou know who made thee?

   Little lamb, I’ll tell thee;
   Little lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is callèd by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild,
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are callèd by His name.
   Little lamb, God bless thee!
   Little lamb, God bless thee!
               --William Blake, 1789

And so, I blessed the little ‘mop’ by escorting her on her way outside.  Farewell little mop.

[If you should know what this creature really is, kindly do not tell me. I’m sure I should not like to know I have some creepy creature’s beguiling offspring running around my house just waiting to morph into some sleek centipede or earwig or something and infest my pantry!  For now, I’ll just marvel at the wonder of God’s design in such a little ‘mop’….]

--LS

And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Gen.1:25

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.
--Cecil Alexander, 1848