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Monday, June 25, 2012

Experience Nature, Right in the Back Yard

a cool flowering plant my mom gave me.  not sure what it is?
Robi has taken over as our gardening extraordinaire this summer.  The tomatoes and pepper plants he planted are hanging in there despite the dry heat here, and we ate our first tomato from this year's crop tonight with dinner!  Yum!


Our neighbor plays the bagpipes, and tonight while Robi was putting Flannery to bed, I walked around outside checking on our little plants here and there around the yard, taking some photos of them, and heard the neighbor practicing.  It was such a quirky little calm moment, listening from my back deck to faint bagpipes as I tried to catch the fading light *just so* as it made a flowering plant my mom gave me glow like fire.   Something about the light and the sound together made me really want to hold on to the moment for a bit, to just hold onto the little slice of beauty I'd been given--bits of color and music free for the taking; bits of sleepy laughter drifting from the window upstairs where Robi was reading to Flanna before her bedtime; bits of connection with my family - that a tiny shoot my mom gave me had turned into a plant strong enough to bloom; bits of gratefulness -- that this sweet little life is mine.

That is the power of experiencing nature--that even just a 5 minute stroll in the back yard can spark such gratitude.  I guess it's true, what EBB says...


Earth's crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God;         ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning


a succulent my mom gave me from her yard in Florida

basil growing like a weed, yay!

green tomatoes



pepper plant that reminds me of a praying mantis shape

a tree in the back yard, with berries that remind me of frog toes.  :)

What part of your home or yard makes you feel grateful?

1 comment:

  1. So funny about the bag pipes. We also have a neighbor that practices and usually in the evening. The sound is hauntingly seductive with the setting of a day. Those flowers spread like crazy, FYI. Before you know it they can take over your yard!

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