Something to be Learned from Weeds

There are lots of advantages to living in a house. Space, privacy, a certain element of freedom...and a yard. The only thing is, that last one also comes with a certain level or responsibility. Yards don't look beautiful naturally, but neighborhoods tend to expect that they maintain a quality that reflects positively on the entire street view. Therefore, when you don't own a lawn mower, and can't afford to buy one, let alone pay for yard maintenance, and you're away from the house a good eleven hours a day, it can get tricky.

I think I mentioned before that we tried, unsuccessfully to user a push mower, and were blessed by the use of a neighbors gas powered mower, but borrowing every week or so gets a bit tedious. And the truth is, during this dry part of the summer, the grass doesn't grow much. That just leaves the weeds to be considered.

Over the past few weeks, I have been trying to deal solely with the dandelions. My thought was, if I could just trim off the buds with some lawn clippers, I could keep the place relatively decent. (Note: with the short grass, we again tried the push mower, hoping it could at least lip off the tops of the weeds, but to absolutely no avail. They just bent over and bobbed back up ad soon as the blades passed over.)

It was during this exercise in futility, that I came to make some thoughtful observations. There is a well known saying that we should learn to "bloom where [we're] planted." The idea is, with a positive outlook on life, we can chose to flourish under any circumstances, and in any location. If you have ever worked with the fight to keep flowers, gardens, quite frankly any growing thing that is not classified as a weed, alive, you'll know that few of these things just naturally, happily, and easily bloom where they're planted. A far better encouragement would be, "Live life like a weed."

Here are a few good reasons:

1) Weeds are well accustomed to being unappreciated, and yet they don't give up. No matter how many times you lop their buds off, they just keep blooming.

2) Weeds are used to making the most of any situation. They grow up between any crack in the concrete, and given a little time, will actually make what appears to be impenetrable stone, move.

3) Weeds are the ultimate in tenacity. Cut them, uproot them, even poison them, they just roll with the punches. It only takes the slightest breeze to fly in a seed that will joyously take root and burst into bloom in the middle of the most immaculate yard.

I could go on, but for now I'll leave you with this little gem from my old neighborhood castle in Cheb:



A little weedy cheer...