Natrully Nature
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Small wonders
I know they are moving; I am the one mowing the lawn
and over the years I developed a mental map of each rock’s location. Two of
them on the front lawn, one is half way to the street and one hiding in the middle
of the flower garden. There is one under the Weeping Willow that I planted four
years ago, three small ones barely seen in the tall grass next to the trailer
in the back yard and a big flat one, protrudes right across from my bedroom
window and the stubs of grass around his head have a reddish tint like a golden
crown.
The one in the midst of the flower bed is the one I
noticed first. Three years ago in an effort to add some color I cleared the
ground around it and planted a pink cone-flower. The cone-flower being a
perennial die back in the autumn and is unnoticed during the winter months but
as spring begins its green leaves pop out of the moist earth, and I realize
that the gap between the flower and the rock grew. This is my absolute proof
that just likes the continents, and the oceans the rocks in my yard move.
***
You! or should I call you white gray speckled
granite, and in short, Granite? You appear so set in your spot as if you were
always there and always will be. Half buried in the moist ground shaded by a
variety of flowers, life is good. No one (including me) disturbs your tranquil
existence. The truth is that we are
carefully walking around you thinking that you are asleep.
But you are not aren’t you? When no one is watching
you open your eyes and camouflaged by the stems of the lupines, and the tall
red Peonies you inch a little to the right, or maybe the left, or just backward
towards the road. My dear Granite, are you trying to run away? Are you lonely
and want to join other rocks and together bond and return to your prehistoric
roots under the thick layer of ground.
***
I am what they call a salt and pepper granite rock.
My appearance is not very distinguished, gray dotted with white. No one will
cast a second look my way. From my place in the front yard, half sunken into
the ground the tall stems of the flowers next to me shading me, I long for the
sun and the company of other rocks that look like me.
Once we were together, a mass of hot lava flowing
freely swallowing everything on our way. But then the cold air made us shiver
and solidify. We became brittle and broke into many smaller pieces.
Later the wind and the rain scraped me and smoothed
my face. It made me look round and soft on the outside, almost friendly.
But at night when everyone around me is asleep I can
feel the ground under me moves. With smooth rhythmic wave-like movements it
carries me ever so slowly towards my aspired goal. It moves like the ancient
ocean that gave me birth and like an ocean, the waves will carry me back home.
Friday, June 10, 2016
Passive resistance triumphs
When I see their yellow heads popping all over the
yard, I know that winter finally loosened its grip and spring is around the
corner. I also know that it is time to mow the lawn and begin my endless power
struggle with these small, seemingly fragile flowers the dandelions.
Dandelions are not the enemy; I am rather fond of
them. Their shiny yellow heads light up the yard that for months was devoid of
any color. I enjoy seeing them turn into round spheres of white feathery bulbs
and have fond childhood memories of blowing on them, causing the white, seeds
carrying parachutes to fly in the air and tell me if my secret love will be
receptive.
I am well aware of their many exemplary medicinal
qualities, an endless list of ailments they are credited with the ability to
cure; the health benefits of dandelions include relief from liver disorders,
diabetes, urinary disorders, acne, jaundice, cancer, and anemia. They also help
in maintaining bone health, skin care and are a benefit to weight loss
programs. So these modest looking plants
are almost too good to be true.
But when spring bursts in my lawn with it the yellow
invasion I know I need to act fast.
I pull out my John Deer lawn mower and start the
tedious task of mowing our motel’s 5 acres grassy lawn. Back and forth I ride
for hours, and while quietly apologizing in my heart, I mow over the carpets of
dandelions. I feel sorry having to cut them, but true to the meaning of their
original French name - Dent de Lion – Teeth of the Lion, they fight right back.
They are using the well-known tactic of passive
resistance which means that as I approach a cluster of flowers with my ominous
mower they bend their heads in resignations and I credit myself with a quick
win. But this lasts for a very short time, a minute later when I look back;
here they are standing erect moving slightly in the breeze smiling at me with
their shiny yellow smile.
I turn and go over them again; now I am mad and full
of boiling energy; I am going to get these small sneering conceited flowers once
and for all. This time around they continue to bend low to the ground, and off
I go feeling less than victorious, somehow I know this is not the end.
The next morning when I look outside the lawn is
white, and for a second I wonder if the winter returned overnight but a close
look reveals hundreds of whiteheads on slender stems swaying in the fresh
morning breath, and I know I lost, it is too late.
Mowing over them will cause them to spread the seeds
all over my lawn and start a new generation of smiling innocent looking
dandelions. Ignoring them will make my yard look like a neglected field. No win
here.
Some days I wonder if it will be smarter to leave
them be, let them grow and multiply without disturbance. After all, what is so
wrong with a green lawn dotted with yellow flowers? I will tell my guests that
this is our new approach to landscaping and offer them to pick some of the
Dandelions and take home with them as a remedy for all future aches.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Golden Moments
It is only for a moment that the
sun catches the trees in the forest just right, and they turn into gold. Gold
tree trunks as far as the eye can see, covered with gold leaves, all the way
from the ground up, and then the moment is gone, and it is just an ordinary
forest with the rising sun hitting it, like it does every morning.
It is only for a moment, a
fleeting moment, that the same sun that rises above the Edom mountain range on
the Jordanian border facing the dining room windows in my house on the edge of
the desert, blush the otherwise bare landscape with blazing shades of red, as
if caught on fire, and then it is back to the dull browns.
Above the jagged mountains that
pierce the sapphire sky, and down into the azure warm water of the Red sea,
licking the shore, the rising sun lights up a kaleidoscope of fish and corals,
in the unending depth.
I can envision the sun lighting
the craggy valley beneath my bedroom window, in our apartment building in
Jerusalem. The valley of the ghosts (Emek Refaim), that for as long as I can
remember hosted the train going into the city, the same valley that once
divided my town, with an unseen, yet impassable border.
And the kettle shrieks and the
water bubbles and my white cat strings a cord of silk around my feet, and I
land.
It is only my kitchen, facing a
line of trees in the back yard, bounded by a tall stack of wood waiting for
winter, next to the stone wall.
And I smile to myself, what a
magical journey.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Weeds are flowers too,
Weeds are
flowers too once you get to know them. A. A. Milne
“And in the evening, everywhere
Along the roadside, up and down,
I see the golden torches flare
Like lighted street-lamps in the town.”
Frank Demster Sherman—Golden-Rod.
When it shows up, one day by midsummer, amidst my flowers,
everyone around me nods their head and urges me to uproot it before it takes
over the entire garden. Names like, invasive all-encompassing, allergenic, and
many more are being thrown in the air. But I who have a warm spot in my heart
for flowers and plants, that come uninvited and transplant themselves into my
garden, smile at it feeling that I was chosen.
My Goldenrod (Solidago Canadensis), lodges itself in the
center of the front garden, between the Daylilies and the Peonies and within
days it is towering over them, sending green branches crowned with yellow
burnished flowers.
I know from reading that it is unfairly blamed for causing
hay fever. I also know that it is the Ragweed ((Ambrosia sp), that needs to be
blamed. It is blooming at the same time, and its pollen spread by the wind is
the cause of many allergy problems.
The Goldenrod, on the other hand, has many positive qualities
and a documented history to prove them. Here are just a few;
Goldenrods are attractive sources of nectar for bees; the
honey produced is dark and strong.
Goldenrods are held in
some places as a sign of good luck and fortune, and while considered weeds in
North America they are used as garden plants in Europe.
Inventor Thomas Edison experimented with goldenrods to
produce rubber; he created a fertilization and cultivation process to maximize
the rubber content in each plant. In fact the tires on the Model T given to him
by his friend Henry Ford were made from Goldenrod; an extensive process was
conducted during World War II to commercialize goldenrod as a source of rubber.
Goldenrod is used traditionally to counter kidney
inflammation caused by bacterial infections or kidney stones. Native Americas
chewed the leaves to relieve sore throats and on the roots to relieve
toothaches.
Knowing all the fine attributes of this plant, I feel that
this newcomer deserves the spot it chose to occupy, and no bad words will
convince me to rip it out and bring the risk of bad luck on my head. And so we
reach an agreement; I will protect his right to grow in peace every summer in
this chosen spot in the garden, and he in return will respect the space of the
other plants in the garden.
No more than few days
into our gentlemanly agreement I can spot young shoots growing all over the
garden, and recognize that this was a one-sided agreement. No one in his right
mind will talk to a plant. Still I am not troubled, with persistence, I am sure
we will be able to maintain harmonious
relationship that I look forward to, and
I will be rewarded every summer with the golden heads of flowers sprinkled all
over my garden.
*Information and plants name from Wikipedia.
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