I am grateful for...

Between the front door and the mailbox, here's what I found to be grateful for this morning:

Four-o'clocks, still "awake" at 8 a.m.

A bumper crop of basil, enough for pesto once a week!

Desert four-o'clocks, a little drowsy at 8 a.m.

Morning-glory* covered mailbox

*NOT to be confused with field bindweed, sometimes referred to as "morning glory." Lyrics to field-bindweed-hating song available upon request.

Bumper crop of elderberries, to become jam within the next 48 hours.

Bluebeard bottlebrush

Butterfly bush

Wild sunflowers 

Coming attractions: sedum blooming in the next couple of weeks. It likes to prolong the anticipation.

A raspberry is not a metaphor

So, I was in one of those moods, where I'm sick of being in my own head, but good and stuck there.

God: (to whom I wasn't especially talking at the time) You ought to go out back.
Me: Yeah, I guess You're right. Watching the weeds choke the life out of the strawberries won't put me in a worse mood, and I can put a hose on the tomatoes.
God: Whatever. Just go outside.

So I go outside and pull ugly weeds for a while.

Me: Hey, raspberries!

They've got viney weeds creeping up them, and they've developed an infestation of little black bugs I haven't seen before, but still I get a whole grundle—enough to eat AND share.

Me (working my way down a row of defunct broccoli): Whoa. Golden raspberries.

I bet I got a dozen—almost unheard of from this bush, whose raspberries are called "golden" for more than one reason.

God: Heh. Told you so.

Lots of Useful Mental Health Facts , and some Tedious Metaphors could be gleaned here. But a raspberry is not a metaphor. It's a very small gift from heaven. And a golden raspberry is an outright miracle.

This is the (itty bitty) forest primeval

To the south of my house, a thick forest grows. Note the closely-grown trees competing for sunlight, and the path clearly marked to protect unwary travelers. Three steps in, chokecherries, elderberries, and gooseberries set fruit to feed the abundant wildlife. A bright-orange mold slowly devours a weathered stump.

Another six steps, and you trip over the next-door neighbor's kiddy pool.

I live in the desert in the suburbs, but I want to live down the path from Hansel and Gretel. So I had to plant my forest primeval. And weed it, and prune it. But this year, there are at least three different camera angles from which you can't see suburbia at all!

I like the wildlife the best. Tiny yellow birds perch on wild sunflowers and eat the seeds. Lazy cats sleep all day in the shade. Cub Scouts pass off the "identify 20 native plants" requirement. And little girls flit among the trees, fleeing from fairies and Indians and witches...or sometimes becoming them.