Serpents in the Garden

One afternoon last week I was in the backyard after filling the cattle trough with water.  I stood there admiring Tricia's rose bushes.  The pink ones are putting on a show.  So pretty!  As I was standing there looking at them, something else caught my eye.  Can you see it?

I'll give you a hint:

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?  Genesis 3:1

See it now?

No, this wasn't a talking snake.  Or at least I didn't stick around to find out!!  This is a Blue Racer snake and it is called this because they can slither up to 4 miles per hour!  They grow up to 36-60 inches long.  Blue Racers eat small mammals and other snakes, so I left it alone, unharmed.  He can eat all the small mammals and snakes he wants around our house.  Tricia wasn't excited about this decision; however, I justified it in the confident knowledge that Tricia could run faster than 4 mph if this snake was chasing her!

Spring Brings Flowers... Along With Something Else

The weather has been fantastic lately.  Cool mornings with brilliant sunshine and the bluest skies you've ever seen.  The rains really invigorated growth on all of the plants, most noticeably Tricia's roses, by activating the rose fertilizer that I sprinkled around the base of the roses.  Her white rose bit the dust last year, but the yellow and pink roses are as happy as pigs in mud.

The pink rose yields a beautiful flower - just about as perfect as you can imagine.

The yellow rose isn't as perfect in shape or symmetry, but it has a really nice fragrance.  The pink one has no scent at all.

Flowers attract appreciation by others that aren't human.  Bees!  Bees are everywhere right now.  Tricia brought it to my attention, much to her chagrin, that our colony of bees (or columny of bees!) has moved back into the column that supports our side porch.  Tricia doesn't like the bees living there as it is not hospitable to guest to have swarming bees by the door that greets most of our visitors.

After the bees left the column last fall, it was my job to get caulk and fill up the crack between the top of the column and the ceiling so that it blocked their entrance.  My intentions were good.  My follow-through was not.  I put one layer of caulking along the bottom and decided I would let it dry before putting the second layer.

But the problem is, I never got back around to putting the second (and third layers).  Those two layers would have completely blocked the bees' re-entry to their home in the column.  Next time they move out, maybe I'll completely patch up the holes.  While Tricia doesn't like them in the column, I love having them there as they pollinate our garden and fruit trees. 

In The Garden

I don't know where I got it in my head that growing roses was difficult.  Maybe it's because there are Rose Societies and other Rose organizations and that's given me the mistaken impression that rose growing is only for the erudite.  Erudite, I am not!  Anyway, a couple of years ago, we purchased 3 rose bushes - a yellow one, a pink one, and a white one.  We planted them in the flower bed in the back yard in direct sunlight and do essentially nothing to them other than fertilize them and prune them once a year.  They respond by giving us loads of beautiful flowers that we cut from time to time and place in a vase to brighten the window sill in the kitchen or the table.

The First Yellow Rose of 2015

It was a Saturday morning and Tricia and Benjamin were in Houston visiting Tricia's mom.  I woke up a little later than usual and walked around outside alone. There was a heavy dew on the ground and as I walked through the backyard in fashionable style (crocs with socks), the dew soaked my feet. But then something caught my eye.  Little droplets of dew dotted the leaves of the roses, put there by the hand of God.

...While the dew was still on the roses...

It reminded me of the old hymn we sing in church written by Charles Miles in 1913.

I come to the garden alone,

While the dew is still on the roses,

And the voice I hear falling on my ear

The Son of God discloses.

Refrain:

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,

And He tells me I am His own;

And the joy we share as we tarry there,

None other has ever known.

He speaks, and the sound of His voice

Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,

And the melody that He gave to me

Within my heart is ringing.

I’d stay in the garden with Him,

Though the night around me be falling,

But He bids me go; through the voice of woe

His voice to me is calling.

There is beauty to behold right outside your back door when you take the time to observe.

Too many times I don't.

And as the song says, if you take time to listen, He'll speak to you.  He'll walk with you and He'll talk with you and He'll tell you, you are His own...

Take time to stop and smell the roses...

We are always so busy.  Every day we have lists of things to get done around the farm, with homeschool, at work and even for enjoyment and recreation.  With Daylight Savings Time ending last weekend, the shorter days are, well, sticking with the rose (and Biblical) themes - a THORN in my side.  When I get off work and begin my 50 minute commute home, by the time I'm almost home, the sun is casting long shadows across the fields.  Tick, tock, tick, tock.  Racing the clock...

We always hear the quote, "Take time to stop and smell the roses" and it is so true.  This past Saturday, I did exactly that!  Tricia always wanted roses and I would rather spend my time growing things that you can eat.  I finally acquiesced and planted a white one, a yellow one, and a pink one and they've done well, despite my lack of knowledge about how to grow them.  They were in bloom and I was able to capture photos of the full range of stages of the roses in bloom.

Here is the rose bud.  You can see that it is just barely opening up, giving just a glimpse of the pink color of the beautiful flower that will be showing itself soon - a hint of the spectacular event about to unfold.

The rosebud

Now the rose is beginning to open.  It hasn't reached its apex yet, but is still nice to look at.

Petals beginning to open in the morning sun

Here is the one that you want to not only look at, but smell.  Just stick your nose right up in there.  Mmmmm. The rose is radiant in its beauty.

Full bloom

Like so many things (including humans, Ha Ha!), the rose isn't in its prime for long.  It begins to droop, sag, and fade in its former glory and luster and although it still has some aspects of its former greatness, it's past its prime.

Delta Dawn, what's that flower you got on, could it be a faded rose from days gone by?

Which brings us to decay.  It's not much to look at anymore.  In fact it is pretty much an eyesore.  The once beautiful, brilliant pink blossom is brown and dead and will soon drop to the ground and become part of the soil.

The once beautiful flower is no more...

But wait!  What is that thing?  What is that bulb underneath where the flower used to be?  It's a rose hip.  A rose hip is the fruit of the rose plant.  Who knew?!  The rose hip can actually be used to make jelly, syrup, and tea, among other things.  So just because the rose blossom is past it's prime, doesn't mean it has lost its usefulness. (There's a lesson in there, somewhere, if you look for it!)  In fact it is now doing it's most important work.

The Rose Hip

You see, inside the rose hip are seeds.  Seeds that if planted just beneath the soil, can grow additional roses, although they may take many months to germinate.  Hmmmm.  So in an incredible cycle and with the passage of time, the once beautiful rose now produces fruit.  That fruit produces seeds that create new roses, that if cared for and nurtured, can create new roses in exponential fashion, shining their beauty to all who take a moment to behold them.

Take a moment to behold them!  (And do your best to create YOUR OWN new 'roses.')