A BLESSING

CAUTION - this posting contains dirty pictures!

A Blessing

A blessing with dirty pictures?

Do you know what a blessing looks like?

Actually, I have had so many blessings in my life, I would not know where to begin if I had to list them all – or even list the top 10… or 20… or – well, you get the idea. But sometimes we get surprise blessings that most people would never believe were blessings… but I do.

Take these pictures, for example. Yesterday, this dirt was covered with that black garden cloth that has been covered it since probably November.

Before that, it was home to tomato plants, beans that didn’t survive the bean beetles, carrots that don’t seem to like it here, and a fine crop of weeds. Oh, and my cold frame that allowed me to have fresh off the vine tomatoes for Christmas. Ok, so maybe there were only 3 or 4 of them and they were tiny cherry tomatoes, but they were MINE and I got to eat them on Christmas straight from my yard. Fortunately, I am the only one who likes them, so I did not have to share.
Now I had no intentions of taking the covers off the garden today. It was in the lower 60s, but I work at a snail’s pace – or I end up in the wheel chair. I have actually learned this. (A blessing that I have learned this!)
I thought I would water the greenhouse plants since it was warm enough to open the door, (another blessing), clean the birdbath since it wasn’t frozen, maybe fill a bird feeder or two, water the new camellia and the pansies and maybe indulge myself by picking a few daffodils. That was my plan for this afternoon. I really hadn’t worried about taking the cover off the garden because I knew my body was not up to doing what comes next – turning the ground over. Sigh. I got a Mantis tiller a few years ago, but it has not ever even had gas put in it. The only dirt it has ever seen is the dust and cobwebs from sitting in my barn. So sad! A friend calls it my virgin Mantis!

Then the phone rang. It was my neighbor, behind me, thru the woods. He said he was going to till his garden today, would I like it if he dropped by and looked at my little garden spot and maybe he would till mine, too? It is smaller than his, though he did not know it at the time.
I guess I am not used to people offering to do things for me. I have gotten used to those you’d expect to help out but so seldom do that I refuse to ask for help. Tilling the garden, small as it is would probably take me at least a week, maybe two. There are cobwebs on my wheelchair, too, and I like to keep it that way, know what I mean?
Anyway, as you can see by the pictures, Frank came over and tilled the garden – all I did was pull the covers off and remove the cold frame which had become home to a thriving crop of weeds. In a half an hour, he was done! I kept thinking of the time and the pain it would take for me to do it with the hoe while I watched him effortlessly push the tiller along. Or at least it appeared to be so.
So I was doubly blessed today, blessed to have a wonderful and kind neighbor and blessed to have my garden all tilled and ready to go! How lucky can you get?