Blossoms and Birdies

As previously mentioned, our annual garden tour is coming up.  You know what this means, right?

Weeding.  Weeding.  And then some more weeding.

So this past Friday, I commenced, and made a fair dent in one area.  On Saturday morning, I put "1 hour of weeding" on my to-do list, and promptly got so busy, it almost didn't happen.  But the hour finally came at 3:15, after transporting Sam to band practice, running various bank/post office/grocery store errands, and selling girl scout cookies at Lucky's for two hours.  I was tired, yo.  Didn't want to weed at all.  But I forced myself to get down on my hands and knees in the dirt and do battle with invasive grasses, oaxalis, and fallen apples.  The last 15 minutes were the hardest, but I kept reminding myself that I am at the beginning of a long road, and if I don't establish a little discipline now, I'll be in a world of hurt later on.

So I kept going.  When I finished, I stopped working and started sitting.

I sat on our back lawn, sipping the homemade lemonade my seven year old daughter had brought out to me, and let the garden come into view.

I take this place for granted.  I forget that I have a private paradise right outside my back door.  But yesterday, in the late afternoon, as the fog rolled in, I remembered.  I grabbed my camera and took some shots of some gorgeous apple blossoms.

And then look what I found:

That right there, ladies and gentlemen, is the tiniest, most perfect little nest you've ever seen, with two baby hummingbirds inside of it.

If I hadn't forced myself to that one hour of weeding, I would have missed both the blossoms and the birdies.  Instead, I weeded, even though I really, really, really didn't want to, and I was richly rewarded.  I'm pretty sure there's a life lesson in there somewhere, but I'm too excited about the hummingbirds to think about it.  And my kids!  Well, I haven't seen my children this excited in a long time -- especially Cenzo, who took the picture above.

Thank God for my little paradise, and for the man who created it for us.

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