Sorting the Weeds from the Wimps

This year's lesson, boys and girls, is drought survival (we hope). Of course there are two ways to look at this, and I dare say I am caught between the two. One way is to go tearing around, hose in hand, like some frenetic ambulance corps desperately trying to do H2O mouth-to-mouth on every single plant, tree, shrub and lawn area that's threatening to expire. I tried that, I REALLY did.....when I wouldn't STOP doing that, some brave deer tick said,"Oh watch this...WE can stop her...." *bingo* SEVENTH case of Lyme disease. And just what part of my happy little body does it GO for? The legs. Dragon teeth in both knees, muscles that just don't want to play. (So why didn't I do four EXTRA articles instead of missing my first one in what, 40? Just couldn't think.....)

The other way to look at all this is just that. To LOOK at all this. Learn from the creatures wiser than ourselves. Try to explain a folded up rhododendron. Is this glass half-empty or half-full? Yes, a folded up rhoddy, doing an imitation of a closed umbrella, is not a HAPPY rhoddy, but it IS a rhoddy taking care of itself JUST like it does when the temp goes down to zero. When life gets too hard, fold up for awhile. It's not that we must make the rhoddy STOP folding up, it's that we might try to help remove the REASON for the Rhoddy to know it needs to fold up.

But I think the most astonishing thing I'm seeing is that in spite of the sad, brown, impoverished look everything has to it these days, in spite of fine and wonderful plants standing stoop-shouldered and vacant-eyed, there are FLOWERS.....and guess who they are. (She smiles)

All around us are dead lawns, flagging shrubs, wilting trees and suddenly there is the entire brass section of wild daylilies just honking up at the sky. Even when their own foliage makes a nest at their feet, they just stand there hittin' the HIGH notes, only to be joined by a total standing ovation from the black-eyed susans. What IS it about flowering stems? Have you EVER seen the flower stalk of a mullein wilt? Ever lower its head? Not a chance. When it's time to bloom, it's time to BLOOM.

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