May 9 – “A harmless little plan”

Yep.  I have the expected “Lawn Boy” aches and pains this morning.  Along with the usual weekly mowing and edging, I fell into the trap of locating and destroying individual clumps of those dreaded interlopers, sticker burs.  It all started when I decided to rake out the dead patches of weeds that succumbed to the Weed n Feed we put out.  Over on the side of our house there was plenty to rake, and plenty more that survived the poisonous incursion of several weeks ago.

On the other side of the house, however, we have growing two very unique versions of oleanders.  If I remember right, they were called Mexican oleanders for some reason.  They were given to us by none other than the oleander society in their effort to complete the takeover of the Island by the invasive poisonous species.  These two finally took off without much tender loving care, and this year they have a fascinating yellow, cup-like bloom that has a less-than malodorous scent.  OK.  Yes, I mean that it didn’t smell all that bad.  Kind of sweet, actually. 

But it was the object I found underneath one of the bushes that truly caught my attention this fine Friday morning.  So wondrous was this spectacle that I had to share it with Chris.  We have been married almost 40 years, and we have come to share just about everything with each other.  I went to the front door and called out for her to come share the unique object with me.  She assumed it would a bird’s nest.  Those are always wondrous finds as well.  But not this time.  This was special.

Now I wanted it to be a surprise, so I concocted a harmless little plan.  As she rounded the corner I grabbed a limb of the oleander with an especially odoriferous flower.  I explained its pungent, yet not overpowering scent.  I urged her to join me in experiencing this wonder of nature.  And she was hooked.  She approached without reservation, surprised by my excitement over anything oleander-ish.  But just before she reached the key patch of ground that would also allow her to experience an additional thrill first-hand, she happened to glance at the ground in front of her.  And she stopped dead in her tracks.  There before her was the wonderfully flattened carcass of a quite large rat.  Her reaction was, if I may say so, priceless.  And I must also hasten to say, the bruises on my arms should be healing quite nicely soon. 

Here’s a little background on the fun escapade that makes it even more comical.  Chris had just been called out on FaceBook by Allen Dammeyer concerning her obvious distaste for the rodentia of the world, even to the extent of relocating her presence to the upper-levels of the atmosphere (well, at least to the top of a chair) when she spots even a cute, little bitty, tiny one in the house.  She formulated a great response about his own terror rendering him immobile, and his fear causing him to double over in humiliation (or something along those lines).  It was quite an accurate description of what I remember seeing, although I probably would have described it more like, “he was laughing so hard he couldn’t even move off the couch.”  But, then, that wasn’t my story.  It does, however, add a certain layer of depth of understanding to my harmless little plan, does it not?

Genesis 1:24 says, “And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.’ And it was so.”

Father, thank you for my wife.  She sure has put up with a lot of harmless little plans over the years.  And she’s still around.  Wow.  Amen.