Last fall I planted bulbs that I hoped would come up and they did:
So beautiful and so strong! All winter those little bulbs had the nourishment they needed to thrive and this spring they decorated my front yard and it was so rewarding!
But sometimes, I don't want things to grow. There is a really old tree stump out our front door that was cut down years ago. That thing still wants to grow, even though I have taken the hatchet to it about twenty times now. I have pounded away at the stump as hard as I could until there are splinters of wood everywhere and no dirt covering the roots and I think surely that will be the end of that. Yet each morning it is still sprouting up new green things that I don't want to be there. How do you stop something like that from growing short of pouring acid all over that would leech into my beautiful hydrangea right next to it?
Last week we worked at old Newton Creek with the Cub Scouts to clean out an area where bamboo had rooted and still wants to grow. This old invasive plant and the wild rose are destroying the natural plants that should be growing there.
Before
After - We got rid of the invasive plants.
And the invasive trash!
Even with my children, I love seeing how their faces change and am reminded on occasional mornings when they come downstairs just out of bed that they have grown. Their eyes are a little different or their cheeks look a little less like baby cheeks. But sometimes I wish they wouldn't grow. I'd like to put a time freeze on them some days. Watching my son take the "big field" this year for baseball, I really thought, "Oh, this must be the wrong field. My son is not as big as those kids out there." But as he wound his way down the hill and through the gate I saw that indeed he was. He is growing and I just fail to see it happening right under my nose. My husband and I like to joke that we are holding them back in school next year, just so we can still say, "Yes, our oldest is in 7th grade, and our youngest is in 2nd grade." Somehow it makes me feel younger and that time is not slipping away as quickly as it is. It sounds better than 8th grade and 3rd grade! That's old...
Watching things grow is pleasant but can be difficult at the same time. Watching the kids learn and hearing them use new language and play with ideas is so enjoyable and rewarding. Inside I grow a little too when I realize how their lives are shaping. But when I hear my son talk about politics or my daughter talk about where she wants to go to college, I'm reminded that this will end. That they will leave us. For even the tulips that were so bright just days ago have all begun to wither and die. As happy as I was to see them sprout, I'm just as sad to see them go. I thought they'd last a little longer.
Same with my children. I never thought the time would go so quickly. My only job now is to continue to allow them to grow... to remove the stuff that threatens to invade their lives and their growth... keep the soil just fertile enough that weeds don't begin to grow around them... watering the good and feeding them and giving them sunshine. When invasive plants threaten I will take my hatchet out! I am the family gardener.
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