April 3 – “Plant Day”

Today we engaged in spiritual warfare.  At least that's what Kel called it.  We went to their house and helped them chop down three tree/bushes.  Two of them were bougainvilleas (I guess that's how you spell it … ain't spell check grand?).  That plant has massive, evil extremely sharp thorns.  Hence Kel's reference to them as the devil plants.  I brought over the chain saw.  And I had to figure out how to use it.  Always before Nathan has been with me.  Thank goodness I found the directions.  And Kel didn't even have to go for gas.  He had some already mixed for his gas weedeater that doesn't work.  It took me awhile, but I finally got it figured out.  We attacked with a vengeance.  And believe me, the boogy plant fought back.  Kel got stuck several times.  But we persevered and even managed to pull the stumps of both evil ones.  It was that other one that gave us the most trouble, though.  I guess the evil from the other two combined and entered that last one.  It had grown into the fence, so we had get under it and cut it loose from the ground.  That way when they replace the fence, they can just roll it away with the debris.  It took the chain saw (which, by the way, I remembered had a part that didn't work right, so we had to keep taking it apart to tighten the chain), the ax, the shovel, and just about all the energy I had left in me.  But we got it.  Chris quickly came in behind us and replanted some of the elephant ears that overrun their backyard.  Jachin and Micah certainly did their share of helping as well – moving dirt they were particularly good at.  They also did a fine job hauling the branches to the street in their wagon.   I thought we were done when we sat down to eat lunch with them.  But no.  I had forgotten that today was also plant day at our house.  So we headed over there to plant some kind of lilies that Chris saved from Mom's house.  The guys were inside taping and bedding.  Have you ever thought about that?  I understand the taping part.  But what's with "bedding"?  I think it would be better to call it taping and mess-making.  Anyway, they were busy inside, so we stayed out of the way.  I did get a call from the floor guy, though.  He wanted to know if it was OK with us if he sent a guy out Monday and Tuesday to install our wood floors.  Seems he has a window where he's not busy.  Send him on!  He said our contractor told him that he wanted to get the wood floor in as soon as possible so he could then get the AC completed so the wood floor would have time to get acclimated to the AC so they could come back and sand and stain it.  Yeah, it went by me pretty fast, too.  I guess that means we'll have the wood part of our floors by Tuesday.   We planted some of the lilies in the flowerbed over by the faucet in the front yard.  Chris put a bunch of them in a huge pot so she can decide later where they'll end up.  The big move, though, was that round bush thing that was right in the middle of the front yard.  It survived the storm fine, so we decided to move it.  It is now in the flowerbed where the minty fresh plant used to be.  We'll see if it survives the move.   1 Corinthians 15:37-44 says, "When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else.  But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.  All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another.  There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another.  The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.      So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."   Father, thanks for the plant day today.  Chris loved it, and I love it when she is happy.  Amen.