~we just have to look for it~

The rains came down as promised late in the afternoon here.  I was thankful to have planted 14 perennials in front of the house this morning.  Now they are receiving the benefit of a good soaking and for that, in the land of the former drought or anywhere else for that matter, we give thanks.

It felt good to be digging into the earth and making way for the wide variety of plants that I bought at the hardware store that Mike manages here in Burkburnett.  I was happy to see a nice assortment of earthworms that greeted me as I dug into their natural habitat in the red soil of this part of Texas.  The ground is healthy here and I knew that it would be good for growing as I watched Mike till it up a few weeks back.  It reminded me so much of my old back yard in Hutchinson, Kansas.  The dirt there was equally healthy and yielded a wide variety of crops of both the vegetable and floral kind.

I like digging in the dirt.
Plain and simple.

When I was on Whidbey Island this past weekend, I stopped at a specialty store that had a wide variety of seeds for sale.  I immediately went over to the display to check it out, realizing that whatever I brought back with me to Texas had to fit in the very limited space of my suitcase.  Flower seed packets seemed to be a good choice and so I picked up several packages of my favorites.  It was a nice find for me and I was grateful to come across several that I ended up buying.

When I laid them all on the counter, the clerk at the register made a remark about the Love Lies Bleeding packets.  She told me that she thought the name was just too sad and that she would never plant them.  When I told her that they had become my favorite kind to plant, she wondered why that was.  So I told her that the name actually was a good one, not a bad one and rather than feeling sad about it, they actually made my heart smile.  She didn't ask me anything further, just rang up my purchase and took my money.  I kind of wish she would have because I had an answer for her and the answer would have sounded something like this.

I plant those flowers, Love Lies Bleeding, every year that I can.  They are a reminder to me of all the good folks that have come into my life, loved me, and eventually have gone away.  My parents, grandparents, a brother and sister, a niece, cousins, aunts and uncles, and dear friends have all left this earth for a place far better than this one will ever pretend to be.  Although my heart was broken and in a figurative sense "bled", I still remember them, each of them, with a happy heart.  When those flowers come into their own and send out long cranberry colored dreadlocks, I smile and recall in my heart the people they were planted for.

I'm funny that way perhaps, but it is how I believe.
You won't convince me otherwise.

I got my love of growing things from my mother and her mother before her.  I feel happy when I am planting something and even though my old knees are saying "Hey, that's about enough of doing that stuff Peggy!" I still continue on.  I do it for those two women and to honor their memory but I do it for someone else as well.

I do it for myself and all that is beautiful and wonderful in this sometimes very troubled world of ours.  May you my dear friends see what is beautiful as well.  It's out there.  We just have to look for it.

Just the beginning of a whole lot of planting that's going to be happening here at our new house.  You have to start somewhere!