June 4 – “Yard Day”

Today is Mom and Dad's anniversary.  I have no idea what year it would have been for them.  I know we had a 50th anniversary celebration a few years back.  Mom loves to tell about how they spent their anniversary every year for about eight or nine years watching me play baseball.  I never even realized it until I was in college.  Thanks Mom and Dad.  I do appreciate the sacrifice.   I spent most of yesterday working outside.  We did the mow and edge and water the grass thing.  We are constantly amazed at how different our yard looks – front and back.  It's hard to even picture the way it looked before Hurricane Ike.  Big, huge some kind of tree in the front (we never did find out exactly what kind it was).  Trees all along one side of the house.  Full grown magnolia and pecan trees in the back.  Fig bush that usually fed the birds every year.  Very little grass in the back.  Pretty good St. Augustine crop in the front.   Then after the storm.  No trees on the side of the house.  The big, huge something tree in front lasted awhile, but then it had to be cut down.  That was kind of fun watching Nathan ride the limbs to the ground and crush the ladder, though.  No magnolia tree.  Pecan tree gave its best shot, but it didn't make it either.  Fig bush simple fell over one day.  No grass anywhere.  Or flowers of any kind.  Until that tiny little blue one pushed its way to the surface out of nowhere.  Kind of a symbol of God pulling us through and showing us there was more to come.    Now we have two sycamore trees and a crepe myrtle in the front. The bushes we planted to provide at least some green are doing well.  There are lilies and paper whites (I always thought that was a strange name for a plant) and some kind of blue-flower bush and a Texas sage and a rose bush all in the front.  And one whole flower bed is covered solid with periwinkles.  That we never planted.  They apparently washed in and were deposited when all the flood waters receded.  Now we have periwinkles growing in a flower bed, the lawn next door, and through the cracks in the driveway.  The back yard still has the remnant of a crepe myrtle that is trying to make a comeback.  Chris has planted all kinds of different stuff in the flower beds, and some of it is doing well.  I have no idea what it is called, though.  We have a trellis around the chimney that now comes through the side of the house instead of the roof.  The climbing rose bush hasn't started climbing on it yet, though.  I'm cultivating a tree that sprouted up in our neighbor's yard to try to give us some shade.  And the grass.  We planted some St. Augustine because that's what we have always had good luck with.  And it's doing OK.  But as with the periwinkles, now we suddenly have a preponderance of Bermuda as well.  One is a little darker than the other, but they're both green, so I'm OK with their cooperative efforts.  We have some friends coming from Arlington next week.  They were among those who helped us after the storm, so I am anxious to hear their appraisal of the differences.    Psalms 17:7 says, "Show the wonder of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes."   Father, thank you for showing us some of your wonder through the little things like grass and periwinkles.  Amen.