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 When
Vivian and I built a house in Burnet we called it “Rocky
Roost, II” and tried to make it as “natural” as possible.
(That’s the “in” thing, you know.) We used rocks to line a
driveway, and to bound a mini-desert section. The carport is
hooked around an ivy-covered spanish oak, and senesia and wild
algarita bushes serve as the shrubs. Scorpions in the house are
a nuisance (especially in shoes), and Vivian insisted I kill the
rattlesnake in the flower bed; but trying to “keep the lawn”
is the Jonah.
By
design, it is a beautiful green oasis, well trimmed, in the
midst of the wilds of nature. I thought the contrast would be
striking. Actually, it is a weed patch surrounded by weed
patches. The red ants that carried off my expensive grass seed
must have brought grass burrs in exchange. We try to chop and
hoe the weeds while we fertilize and water the grass, but
apparently things are getting a bit confused. Now it seems our
best “out” is to brag about our wild flowers and cut them
just often enough to get through to the door. We are learning
that “au natural” and “well dressed” are two conditions,
oft incompatible.
Hearing
rumors that we were untidy prompted a profound philosophical
lesson
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from our weeds. Careful research reveals that
weeds and loose talk are of the same genus, if not of the same
species. This is the way they work.
Weeds,
and gossip, seem to sense a “couldn’t care less” attitude,
and will not grow well under such conditions. They thrive on
just enough attention to challenge them — not quite enough to
root them out. You admire the flowers so you leave them for a
time, and they go to seed. A less-than-fatal weedkiller does
something for their ego, and they work overtime to out-do you.
Pour oil on a few big ones, and they reappear as a lot of little
ones; that spread into areas once cleared. Like sand spurs, if
you clip their tops they make burrs close to the ground, ready
to mature soon after the mower is past. Burrs must be cleaned
from your boots regularly or they will infect other areas,
including your living room carpet.
Eventually
we must learn that an air-conditioned brick house is not natural,
and that to survive we must control both nature and tongue.
Living in keeping with the nature of God is the kind of ecology
that will prepare our soul for heaven.
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