Sharing this post with the Five Minute Friday writing community – today’s word prompt is HAVE.
Coffee in hand, I have been sitting in my favorite chair taking a break from today’s gardening endeavors. The knees of my blue jeans are wet and a bit muddied because I should have made an extra trip to the garage to retrieve my knee cushion (but didn’t). My cushion is an old seat cushion from my brother’s wheelchair and has served me well for several years now. It’s nice and cushy for my aging knees, and big enough to provide a dry place for me to sit when the grass is wet with morning dew. [I am making a mental note to grab it when I go back outside in a few minutes.]
I chose the east side of my house as my focus for today’s weeding and cleanup endeavors. In years past, it has been the side of the house which few people see. However, this year we took down two unhealthy spruce trees in our front yard, giving passersby an unobstructed view of a flowerbed which had previously been fairly well hidden. I have decided to put a little extra effort into this garden space and see if I can make something special out of it–something which my neighbors can enjoy.
But now, at this moment, it’s overgrown with lamium (a noxious weed disguised as a plant), and many weeds and over-wintered, water-soaked hosta leaves. As I pull my hand rake through the tangled bed of yuck, the green shoots of this year’s floral promise are slowly uncovered.
There, under last season’s detritus, are the green tips of an emerging hosta, alongside the peony my dad dug for me from his garden a few decades ago.
As I cleared away last year’s fallen leaves, I found this lovely patch of pulmonaria bedazzled with pink and blue little bells. Even when the flowering finishes, I just love the fuzzy, bespeckled leaves. [Take a gander here if you’d like more photos and info about the pros and cons of this lovely plant.]
April weather is absolutely crazy in Wisconsin. Spring? Summer? Winter? It can’t make up its mind! One day I’m working barefoot in my garden–the next day snow squalls are springing up here and there, or hail is pelting the house. Our crazy weather reminds me that life is unpredictably subject to change without advance notice. In this earthly body, I have this moment and this breath–and have no guarantee of the next. This thought encourages me to make every moment and every breath that I can a beautiful one and to make sure my heart is ready for that first breath of heaven.
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ~ 2 Cor. 5:1 (ESV)
Barefoot Lily Lady 