May 29 – “Job security”

We had some serious help with the yard work the other day.  Cailyn was over while her Mom went to a job interview with UTMB (Operating Room, I think.  Do some praying, please).  She had me get down the toy lawn mower so she could “finish up the mowing” while I did the weed eater.  She showed very nice manners, too.  Any time she came up behind me she would scream at the top of her lungs to get my attention.  See, I wasn’t wearing my hearing aids, and that weed eater makes a lot of noise.  When I turned off the machine and turned to see what she wanted, she would grin and softly say, “Excuse me,” and make her way through with her little mower.  She was being oh, so careful to stay on the sidewalk, so she mowed right through whatever grass clippings Chris had managed to sweep up.  Of course, she couldn’t get on the grass itself because she was barefoot, so she was keeping all that sidewalk grass at bay.  And doing an admirable job, I might add.  Gotta love it when the grandkids want to help. 

We started cleaning out the main front flower bed again.  It’s the one with the overabundant crop of dollar grass.  That’s the stuff that develops an extensive root system that makes it virtually impossible to uncover and remove by hand.  It sends shoots in every direction, and whenever it runs into the roots of an existing plant … no problem.  It forces its way right through the middle of the cluster, again making it next to impossible to get to all of it without pulling up the good plants’ roots as well.  And you can’t really poison it, because you would have to kill all the plants you want to keep as well.  So all you can do is pull on the old garden gloves and start tugging.  Oh, you’ll have just enough success to make you want to try one more pull, or dig just a tiny bit deeper.  But in the long run, the easiest approach is to pull up all the green, silver-dollar-shaped offenders that you can and scheduled your next appointment.  Makes for good job security for the gardener, I guess.

Psalms 92:1-3 says, “It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night, to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp.”

Father, thank you that the music you love to hear doesn’t have to come from a lyre or a harp or even a trained voice.  You like that heart-music best.  Amen.