Grace Tulips
God gives us so much without us putting forth ANY effort. When we moved into our house more than ten years ago, one of the selling points was the curb appeal. The white picket fence, the beautiful flowers. Our first spring here, we were dazzled with an entire row of beautiful red tulips along that picket fence.
Those tulips were quite resilient to my inattention for several years. But for the last four years or so, we've gotten no tulips. The green comes up but shot forth no bloomage. It was very sad, but not sad enough to prompt my memory in the fall to thin out the bulbs or some such hard work.
This year, I hoped but had no expectation. So this bloom was especially thrilling. And we have a few more to come! In the second picture, you can see the long row of bloomless tulip foliage with the tiny red speck representing one tulip at the end of the row.
Someone once gave us the advice/excuse that we were growing children, not lawns or pretty flowers. It didn't take much for me to take that to heart. It was harder on Stan though. You can sure tell we're growing kids with one look at our pitiful yard these days, much to the disdain of our neighbors who have sprinkler systems and lawn services.
The irony does not escape me that I romantically wish for a farm where we grow our own vegetables and fruit, let our animals freely roam the range and sell our eggs (vegetables and meat) at the local farmer's markets. Isn't it a nice dream for the person I could be some day? Maybe if I can conquer bulb digging ...
Posted in: on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 at at 10:22 AM
