Sassy Sue is unusually good at communicating with us, perhaps because we spend so much time together. If she suspects someone is threatening her backyard, she lets us know. It may be a Cox repairman, someone different next door, or a new pet at the Gardener's home.
The basis for Creation Gardening is an assumption, well grounded in data and experience, that God manages His property well - far better than we do.
Everything has a purpose and nothing is wasted in His Creation. If conditions are changed, everything adjusts to the shift in resources. I captured as much cardboard as I could to finish mulching the front yard. Where grass and weeds once flourished, roses and companion plants grow and flower.
The weeds have not given up. Some poke through the armor of cardboard and mulch. Birds thoughtfully plant their favorite foods, as swaths of wild strawberries decorate the mulch. The wind blows in the rest of them, easily found and removed. The English ivy from the house joins the party wherever possible, not only as cheerful plants on top but also as runners underneath the mulch, trying to conquer the rose garden for ever-growing evergreen ivy.
The stumps from trimming the maple were scattered at first, but now they are finding some order in the rose garden. Most onlookers question the stumps. Several serve as tables where I can set up rose vases, to reduce tramping through the garden to put roses in water after cutting.
All the stumps show signs of another purpose. They are spotted with bird dung, showing the platforms are highly favored as safe places for birds to preen and search for food. My neighbor asked how birds find their food, by listening? "They seem to listen for insect and worm movement." I said, "They also like a safe perch so they can look down on the mulch and spot movement."
Likewise, I took all the pieces of twine from the roses and draped them over the large Crepe Myrtle. A bird sees them as building material for the nest, so attractive that one robin played tug-of-war with string I was using on a pea-vine, long ago. She would not give up on that string. And if a prized possession is dropped in flight - the bird will come down and reclaim it at once.
The birds love to see me digging. I will invariably turn up insects, grubs, and earthworms. The birds seem to be chortling among themselves as they watch. Watering the plants is another opportunity.
I do a little work every day, but not that much in the garden. Divine management takes over, gathering and organizing the soil creatures, birds, plants, moles, and neighborhood cats to do the real work.
I spend a lot more time broadcasting the living seed of the Word than the packets of seed I buy. The results are similar. God manages the results of His effective Word. No synod bully will ever admit to that. They imagine they are managing everything - protecting their felons and persecuting the faithful. If they were gardeners, they would be arrested by the EPA or PETA.
