Long, Slow Rain in the Gardens

Borage produces plenty of seed, food for the bees,
medicine for the discerning.

My weed in the rose garden has bloomed, and it is the borage that I planted earlier. I will make sure our helper looks over this weed, so he is not tempted to remove it in the future. The plant started out ugly, and insects chewed on it, but it failed normal weed identification tests - not grassy (witch, duck, saw), not broad-leafed (dandelion), not coarse and dedicated to seeding (plantain, crab), not a ground cover (jill-over-ground and various low growing weeds).

"By their fruits ye shall know them." Various blogs have been dedicated to posting frowns about the fruit of false doctrine without addressing the false teachers themselves. No, this timidity is not due to the delicate feelings of the bloggers, who take unwarranted swipes at me. They fear retribution  from those false teachers, the ones who cause their anguish. Their fears make me think they never heard of -  "What man meant for evil, God intended for the good."

Genesis 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. 21Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

Luther wrote too, that the Holy Spirit is so powerful that He can use the greatest evil for the greatest good, as He did at Calvary.

I continue to marvel at the people who lock themselves in the synodical jail by accepting the abuse handed out to them. They sit in their CRM status and whine about CRM status, which means they will never get a call from the popes who administer the CRM status. They could associate with one another, form new worshiping opportunities (no established synod) and experience life outside the synodical prison system. 

They also grieve over the fruits without addressing the noxious weeds. "But Pastor Weed and I were in the same seminary class. VP Crabgrass was two years ahead of me, and my wife is related to his wife, Poison Ivy."

I will invoke the horticultural subjunctive - "Lettuce begin anew. The Word is far more powerful than the decaying institutions of man."

The Rain
The long, slow rainfall gave us about 1/2 inch, which has greened up the grass, the crabgrass, and the gardens. As you remember from previous post, rain brings fixed (usable) nitrogen to plants and lightning adds to that.

I took out the Epsom Salt bag and sprinkled the inexpensive soil amendment on all the gardens and on the crepe myrtle bush.

Large crabgrass can produce 150,000 seeds per plant in one season.
The family is called digitaria, for the finger-like joints.

I keep crabgrass cut low and spray whatever begins in the cracks of the sidewalk and driveway. My neighbor on the corner let his crabgrass get away from him  in his raised rosebeds, so now he has ugly, green plants - instead of mulch - around the roses. All my neighbors are good about mowing, but many leave crabgrass growing and seeding in their sidewalks and in the cracks in our paved roads.

That should not surprise the theologues, who have left the weeds undisturbed in their gardens while eyeballing ones 200 miles away, screaming invectives at the non-threats. Besides, from that distance they often identify weeds as flowers and flowers as weeds. 

The virtue of weeds is their ability to fend for themselves in good and bad weather, spreading quickly to provide for the next generation. False teachers do that too, so they grow if they are not stopped early and often.

The best remedy for lawn weeds is regular cutting and letting the grass push out the weeds, allowing weeds  no room to grow, fighting the fecundity of weeds with the fecundity of grass. The roots  of lawngrass are closely entwined and eager to send out new shoots via stolons. I mulch the grass as it is cut, so the grass fertilizes itself and the red wigglers do the digging, tunneling, digesting, chewing, and casting (manuring). 

Yesterday, most of my gardening work consisted of watching the rain and planning more jobs. My  Fiskar manual pruning saw came, so we will add new prunes to the pile of branches that fell during our windstorm (70 mph). The backyard has changed from dungeon doom to large areas of sunlight, due to the removal of overhanging, dead, wind-tossed, and crossing branches.

"I am, you are.
We are Australians."
Hugh Jackman, Australian, added to his fan base 
when he spoke at Walmart and sang Gloria in Excelsis Deo.

Sassy's Trip
We had a number of brief medical stops, so Sassy went along. She was alarmed by one drugstore, which was a new stop for her. She does not like to see her Mom leave the car, so she was restless the whole time. However, at the Neighborhood Walmart, she was calm, since we stop there so often and I run into the store. 

This time I stayed in the car with Sassy to teach her Waltzing Matilda. The key verse has the itinerant (swagman) killing a sheep and putting it in his tuckerbag ( knapsack) for food. The owner (squatter) arrives on his fancy horse (thoroughbred - showoff) and has three policemen arrest the swagman.

"OK Sassy. Up rode the squatter, riding on his thoroughbred.
Down came the troopers, one, two three, Bark three times  - bark, bark, bark."

We practiced a little and she came in on the three barks. That verse is ironic because why put three officers on one itinerant for grabbing a sheep?

Where's that jolly jumbach you've got in your tuckerbag?

You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.

The jumbach is a sheep, and the Matilda is an all-purpose blanket.

Dr. Lito Cruz and his wife Lyne - Australians.
http://extranos.blogspot.com/

I told Mrs. I, "Sassy has to learn her culture, since she is half Australian." 

The Seekers are the ultimate Australian group, the first to become famous and easily the best pop group ever.