Thoughts from the Garden

It's 83 degrees at 8 am in this morning.   It's the same temperature before I went to bed last night.  It's only going to get hotter.  Days like these make me want to get out and take care of the garden as quick as I can.  I sip my morning coffee and head out with my gallon jug of water for the front garden.  The flowers are looking weepy in the morning sun.  

I go to the back patio and water the herbs and vegetables.  The shade provides little relief as I feel the humidity all around. It's then that I realize I have forgotten about the strawberry bed in the back garden.  I walk there with water that's left. 

The strawberry plants are doing fine on their own.  I douse them with the rest of the water. I anticipate the sun's rays will wilt the leaves later in the day.  

But oh, I survey the rest of the garden. The weeds all around the rest of the garden don't seem to be bothered by the heat.  They seem to thrive on it.  I have been so busy with the children and the summer schedule that I had forgotten to weed and it shows. I start plucking a weed and then another.  I realized that this is bigger than I can handle in 5 minutes.  I call in the reinforcements. 

The girls and I spend 15 minutes weeding all kinds of unknown weeds. I hear chattering and laughing and the sound of weeds flying past my head. I see so much of these unnamed and unwanted plants that now I want to learn their names and where they come from.  Our weeding time is up but we will have more to do later. 

These unknown, these unnamed, these unwanted, they are always around me.  I don't recognize them always. I realize then that it's only when I spend time in their presence and that the veil is lifted.