Mud pies anyone?

                                                              Mud! Mud! Glorious mud! 

                                                 Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.   

                                                  So follow me, follow, Down to the hollow, 

                                                  And there let us wallow In glorious mud.

Considering that the state of Kansas has been in a deep state of drought for several years - and parts of the Sunflower State are still - - - I should not speak these words - - - but I hate mud!

Recently we have been blessed with rain.  One night in fact it came so quickly and rained so hard that our back yard got a little scary . . . We had not witnessed that much water since moving here a year ago.  Water came from our neighbors who are higher up than us and ran between us and the neighbors house next door - picking up their new cypress mulch and a baby bird - and swooshed through our yard - right up to our back door - - - and off our patio.  Didn't last long - nothing hurt - well except for the bird - - - but mud - yuck.  You see our yard is not all grass - it has some large areas of dirt - anyway - you get the picture - water - dirt - - - mud.  

I love that God gives us some great lessons in nature though, don't you?  Tonight as I finished cleaning up around the yard - and my flower gardens - I decided to grab the shears and trim the rose bushes - With all of the rain and sunshine they had grown like crazy.    I quickly snipped away in the front of the house and hauled the prickly thorned rose stems into the trash can near by.  Heading out back - I trimmed up the small climbing rose bush - making quite a little pile of thorny (real thorny) leaves and stems.    Shoot forgot to grab the trash can - didn't have a sack - or anything to put the piercing little stems in  - - and I was so tired - didn't want to walk one more step to go back to the garage for the trash can - - - so I thought to myself . . . hmmmm . . . maybe if I gently touch this mean looking pile of needle like thorns  very lightly very carefully with very little pressure - carefully, easy, surrounding the entire pile with gentle hands and careful moves - - - I wouldn't feel any pricks and could inch my way to the garage . . . Get the picture???   It worked!!!  I easily lifted the entire pile up off the ground - the stems stuck to each other I guess - and not to me - - - and I was struck with this thought . . . 

Maybe those "thorny" people in life that we face each day should be handled the same way?  Like I said - God speaks to me in nature and his creation - and the lesson I took was that sometimes people who are rough around the edges just need to be handled with gentle caring attention - maybe it is best for me to take a soft approach - and then nobody gets "stung"!!    It certainly worked tonight with some angry looking roses -and after all, aren't  people who are "stinging and barbed" on the outside - still a beautiful rose in God's eyes.   Handle with  Care.

Blessings tonight in mud and thorns.

                                                 

“He who slings mud generally loses ground.”

Adlai E. Stevenson

                                                

Ode to the RETURN of the trumpet vine tree!!!

Oh I think that I shall never see . . . 

A thing as pretty as a tree . . . 

It has arrived!!!!! I am so excited!!  Actually they have arrived - Two very small little trumpet vines.  One orange and one yellow.

And what a tree it is!  If you remember last summer I said goodbye to a dear friend of mine in our former town.  A trumpet vine tree that had stood in our yard in Glen Elder for over 30 years was ridiculously chopped down and thrown aside after we left town.  

I had moved on and learned to enjoy my new back yard, patio and flower garden.  I have plans made for just what I will plant this year.  But to my surprise, I received the most amazing birthday gift from my sister Tami - Through the pages of Michigan Bulb Company - my dreams of having another trumpet vine beauty was coming true!   The email said that two trees - one yellow and one orange would arrive on my doorstep when it was time for planting!  

Thank you again Dave and Tami for thinking of me - I will treasure this for years to come.  Tami also gave me careful instructions on how to ride reign on the trumpeteer - - - they can get wild and crazy out of hand - they must be mastered - and so I will be soon looking for just the right place to plant.  

And to those in my family whom I shall leave nameless . . . who found the trumpet vine masterpiece in Glen Elder to be a nightmare of wasps and flowers just right for exploding with firecrackers - - - there will be plenty more fun now that I am back in the business of mothering the tree of all trees!  

Clay worked hard today - Easter Sunday to replace some old trellis with some new bright white trellis.  We think this might be a great place for the new trumpets to begin to grow.

           My son-in-law and daughter soooooo happy to hear about the return of the trumpet vine!!

   

Beautiful orange and yellow blooms against the white - oh just picture it!!

Grow little fella's

Beating the winter blues really suc . . . succulents, geraniums,petunias - think on these things!!

Seriously having a never before case of winter blues - - - so I'm thinking ahead to my flower garden.  I didn't really get to start much of one last year as we moved in on the hottest day of the summer I believe and we kinda drug along the pots we could move and tried to keep them going with the many days of 100+ degree temperatures!

If I were to be honest it is not the cold - not the snow - not being indoors that is bothering me the most - - - it is the MUD!  Shhhh . . . don't tell ANYONE I said that as we are in the midst of a terrible drought in my section of Kansas and our livelihood depends on this mud!  So I see the blessings in the moisture but I have always had a true aversion to MUD.

MUD   - when you think about it  - it is the worst!  Snow is clean, Rain is clean, Dust and Dirt is easily cleaned up, but MUD - what do you do with mud???  You just sit and wait til it dries up and you can sweep it away or vacuum it up (yes I feel the need - - - the need to vacuum the garage).  You can't pick it up or wipe it away - it just gets worse - I HATE MUD!

I have some issues with obsessive/compulsiveness - as you all know - - -

So - thinking ahead to spring and summer I can almost feel the sunshine beating down on me as I play amongst my flowers.   I always have red geraniums and white and red wave petunias, in my blue ceramic pots - and there I have it - - - red white and blue!!  I love it!   I have two plants of sedum that were here in the back yard when we moved in.  They look pretty all summer and bloom in the fall.  They are succulents. So I am going to spend some time learning all I can about how to plant and care for succulents.

I am sharing some pictures and a little planting information.

Beautiful creeping ice plant!!

To view a very helpful article on planting succulents both in pots and in the ground - click here.

Blessings found (or at least trying) in mud . . . Blessings found in gardening (and the anticipation of it).