May Morning

Yesterday was the most gorgeous, cerulean blue-sky day in weeks! The temperature was resort-like, sweater-weather cool in the morning but warming under a benevolent sun rising to its zenith. I couldn't get enough of it.  I watched my husband turn shaggy lawns into carpets of verdant green as he sat on the riding mower doing endless loops over our son's and our yards. He is at it again today, I think as much for the fun of it as the necessity of beating back nature in her attempt to swamp us in a rain-induced jungle.

We are having the second day of respite from downpours, but the forecast is rain and thunderstorms for the rest of the week, with the sun coming out on Sunday. We are thankful for the window of opportunity to get things done between showers. Howard's artistic side is evident in the way he mowed our front lawn.  "I want to leave the clover," he said, "I want it to go to seed." So now we have neat little stands of clover, oval islands of blossoms like white foam in an emerald sea.

I'm glad he left the clover, because I see honey bees sipping its nectar.  I love clover honey! They have also been buzzing around the brightly colored flowers in pots on our front patio.  It's beginning to look like a flower garden out there as the plants proliferate in a profusion of color.  I must stop adding things, but I couldn't resist a cute, scrolled, steel basket hanger I saw on sale today.  I hung a small fern on it, but there is also a shelf to hold a potted plant if I choose.

My pansies are loving the extended spell of cool, rainy weather!  Their little faces shine cheerily as they bob up and down peeking over the rim of their pots.  A basket of pink impatiens, ordinarily a shade plant, is blooming happily in the infrequent, cool sunshine.  A sun-tolerant variety of impatiens on an old, slatted bench, is doing well, too, as are the petunias, marigolds and zinnias in their planters. A couple of geraniums are a bright spot of red in their terra cotta pot. We have one in a hanging basket on our side fence out back, as well.

Jesus loved gardens, I believe, as He and his disciples often resorted to a garden to pray.  In fact, it was in the garden with olive trees that Jesus was taken by soldiers after his betrayal by Judas.  Of course, human life began in the Garden of Eden, God's perfect garden. "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man who he had formed," Genesis 2:8.

Nature's transformation is pictured in Isaiah's descriptive language of the millennial reign of Christ, when "The wolf also will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard shall lie down with the kid; And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them," Isaiah 11:6. I'm confident there will be gardens and flowers there, for Isaiah 65:21 says,   "...And they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them."  What a morning that will be!