What's she up to, anyway? (thoughts on Mother Nature)

(I still have not managed to get this robin to fetch the paper for me in the mornings. He just looks at me like I'm crazy when I am encouraging him to drag the thing if he can't pick it up.)


Before Spring ends here in the northern hemisphere, I want to show you a couple of shots taken when our crabapple tree, which is the focal point of our front yard, began to drop the millions of petals it bursts forth with every year.

It's a big show, one which opens and closes within a matter of a few days, and one we enjoy every year. Some years, a late freeze will make the blossoms less numerous. Not this year.

That's not what I'm talking about today, though. Today, I want to show you a concrete (pun accidental but left in) example of how Nature is capable of healing.

Here is part of our driveway, and as you can see, a whole bunch of blossoms accumulated.

Here's the fun part. This next photo is of a small (maybe four-inch-long) gash in the driveway, a wound which the driveway suffered at some point before our moving in 11 years ago.

As you can see, Nature has filled the tiny canyon with crabapple petals.

Of course, this is not a case where the repair is anything more than cosmetic, and it probably was blown away later that same day, now weeks ago, by the wind.

But I was impressed by the metaphor, of Nature as the healing entity. Just as these so-temporary blossoms came to beautify the gash in the driveway, Nature does all manner of softening of the rough edges.

Events take place which expose sharp and painful edges, and then time and Nature soften and eventually erode them to nothing. Father Time, Mother Nature. Their children are we all.