Embracing Resilience: Life Lessons from Dandelions

Welcome back to a little calmer week in the Mitton Household. Perhaps calmer, but no less busy. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate with all we wanted to accomplish this past weekend, but here we are nonetheless. It has certainly been a wet, dismal few days. And here we are back on a Tuesday post! Back on track (at least for now! lol) Last week, we decided to sit with a little theme on “The Humble Dandelion”. Consequently, we’ll jump right in with my thoughts: Dandelions are seemingly very resilient!

Despite the rainy weather, we did get a little break in the clouds on Sunday… just enough for me to plant a few pots of annuals in our otherwise full front garden. The hubby cut the grass. As I sauntered down the side steps of the porch, I was struck by two things: One, a huge dandelion with about 4 blooms growing out of the gravel of the paving stones, and two, how many dandelions were back after cutting the lawn! Resistant and resilient!

I’ve heard it said that grass lawns started as a sign of wealth. Pick a non useful, time consuming -to- grow crop, like grass, and flood your front lawn with it to prove yourself worthy to the neighbours. Who came up with that plan? We should have just let the wildflowers and weeds alone and filled our yards with colour… the yellow dandelions are there anyway! And they even grow in the poorest soil (in my case gravel!) of the side pathway. In abundance! I haven’t pulled it out yet… just because. Just because it’s showing me that yup, I am here and here with a vengeance!

And since we’re using A.I. why not generate an image…this is not my path… and dandelions have leaves too! 🙂

Let’s explore it a bit more, shall we? Admittedly, A.I. generated some interesting thoughts on the “resilience of dandelions”, so, although not my own thoughts, they accompanied my musings so well, I thought I’d share. We already talked about their persistence. Those little blooms can get mowed under and still pop back up, seemingly unharmed. They can withstand the harsh environments! Dandelions are certainly adaptable. Perfectly manicured lawns are dotted with them occasionally when the owners slip up, and open fields, rocks, hills and my gravel pathway see the spring returns of the weed. They’ll grow anywhere!

I suppose blooming in adversity and taking root in difficult places coincide – demonstrating their ability to adapt to harsh environments, they easily overcome adversity. Plus, dandelions seemingly have the ability to find solutions to said adversity, and bloom and grow even in challenging situations. Persistence. Perseverance. Adaptability. Do you see where I am going here? Of course you do. Obviously, we can take a little lesson from the God-given weeds. The humble yellow flower.

Take chances. Make mistakes and get mowed under, but rise to the challenge and pop up again, unfazed. Our environments should not dictate how we bloom for Jesus. The rocky soil may be tough, but we can do it. Do you work or play in a “ungodly” place? Do you hear the words and struggle to remain holy in an unholy environment? If God can give the little dandelion a place to bloom and flourish every spring, then He certainly has plans for you to “bloom where you are planted”!

Photo by photokip.com on Pexels.com

It’s a simple concept. Perhaps even a Sunday School lesson, not one fit for an internet blog post, but if A.I. can pump it out, then I suppose it is worth thinking about at least! So, go ahead. Pluck that weed out of your pathway, but pause and think about how it survived there in the first place. God helped that little seed float on its way. Perhaps blown in the wind by some little puff from a toddler delighting in the parade of white seed parachuted away by a huff! Then it floated and settled not where it was comfortable or easy, but where it was rocky and harsh. Yet, it survived and thrived! Now go out and do the same, my friend, do the same!

The Expert Master Gardener: A Reflection on Life and Lavender

Welcome back to another week of Livin’ the Dream! It’s been a full week of activity… the hubby and I celebrated another wedding anniversary year of not killing each other, and we hosted our friends for a grand gathering and Bar-B-Que at Itsnotta Farm. One of our kids moved into a new place today, and we found a fabulous little nook off the lake to watch sunsets together (aren’t we romantic?) All around, a good time.

On with the muse for this week, though… enough about me. At said Bar-B-Que, I was touring around a friend and showing off my albeit colourful, but disaster of a flower garden. I have a variety of flowers there, but the goldenrod (aka giant ragweed) is about to take over and give my daughter-in-law a severe case of the sneezes. As the friend and I chatted about this and that that I would like to do in the garden, what I want to swap out, what I love etc. etc. it occurred to me how much I really do recognize in the flower world. I know quite a few plants by name and how tall they get, and where they like to be, and when they are in their prime. I’m not sure how I acquired such knowledge over the years… but it’s somewhere in there rattling around in my brain. Huh! I was impressed with even myself.

One of the many varieties of lavender!

Now, I will openly admit, I am certainly not a horticulturist by any stretch of the imagination. I dabble and dig and hope for the best. I know some common plant names, and googled a few, but certainly don’t know the Latin derivatives nor all their uses. I’m learning though. For our anniversary, the hubby and I visited a working lavender farm for a relaxing afternoon. I love lavender, and it’s been on my list for awhile… even though lavender is not in season at the moment, it was fun to walk through the bee loving “bushes”. Did you know there were several varieties of lavender? Buena vista, lavandin, and edelweiss (a white one!) and 450 some odd other varieties! Of lavender alone, people…

Let’s look back at my golden rod mess… golden rod is a “wild flower” … to me, a weed. Along with cosmos, daisies, buttercups and I’m sure you can name a few others. Tiger lilies are also weeds for me… you can’t kill those things! I found out that one of my favourite wild blue flowers (which grows along the road side but never will transplant to my spaces!) is actually a chicory… like the coffee substitute. A lesson I just learned this week. Now just start to let your mind wander a bit to add flowers to your list from mine. What do you know? Roses. Tropical plants, grasses… it goes on and on. And there is a name for every one! I am sure all the gardening books couldn’t put a dent in the list. Let alone the gardener get it all right.

Oh my beloved, do you see the comparison here? Our Master gardener knows not only every tree, flower and blade of grass, but He knows YOU! Every hair on your head, every wrinkle and every scar. He knows your name and why you are here. And He knows all of us. From the beginning of time to the end – God knows us all! I cannot begin to imagine. I have trouble enough keeping my own kids and pets straight… not to mention cousins and extended relatives. Yet, God knows every minute detail about you and me… and cares about it! Like an expert, He tends the hearts of each of us, like a flower farmer tends his rows of lavender. He knows the conditions necessary for us to flourish, and the things that choke us out and cause us not to flower and bloom where we are planted.

I don’t know about you, but this is so encouraging to me. God’s got this. He knows me better than I know myself! Which can be a little frightening, I suppose. Yet, the awesomeness of it, seems to outweigh the fear for me. A deep muse which I don’t understand, but captivates me nonetheless.

So, next time you drive by a field of wildflowers, or pull those “weeds” from your flowerbed, be reminded that there is a Master gardener, who’s got it all figured out!

If I Could Save Time in a Bottle

When we first moved out here to rural Ontario, we struggled with getting up early for the school bus. We’re night hawks and that early morning pick up was tough. It continues to be tough, but we are getting used to it. However, once we were up so early… we seemed to have a lot more time. I noticed even after morning coffee and scrolling, I still set about my day with good measures of time. Be that as it may, I continue to struggle with all the things I want to see accomplished. The days are getting longer and there seems to be more daylight, but, man, there never seems to be enough time. I have been meaning to unpack the last few boxes hidden in the basement. I want to tackle some DIY projects. My seeds need to get in some soil in order to be ready for garden planting. Chicks are coming… have to organize bunnies and prep the coop. Even now that I am not working again, there still never seems to be enough time.

Bill Watterson quote from Mary Mott Writes

Now don’t go getting all “holier than thou” and tell me if I prioritized my time… or if I got off social media… or that I’d get done what is important to me… Perhaps all these things are true. I am also trying to be sensitive to my family who prioritizes people instead of tasks. I have to be social they say. Visit. Build relationships. Self care? How about personal hygiene? Housework? Did you know that the average person will spend almost 750 days doing dishes in their lifetime. Our dishwasher is currently dead. I am sure we are going to up that number. We have kids and creatures and gardens and a house; extended family. Church. Community. We live a fifteen minute drive from anything. If I could save time in a bottle… I’d be rich and have more time for … well … time for more.

Ecclesiastes tells us “there is a time for everything…” and we recognize that this is true, but, if you’re like me, you don’t quite understand the time-shift continuum, and often wonder how we fit everything in to our days without getting a bit funky smelling. I found a deep sentiment to explain it:

“When scripture declares that for everything there is a season, this means that the various circumstances we go through in life are not by incident, but orchestrated or allowed by God with great purpose and intentionality.”

biblestudytools.com

We often talk about “seasons” of life. Chunks of reality when it’s understandable that this or that will take up your time. Retirement. Parenthood. Adolescence. We recently took to tapping our forest for sap. Maple syrup making has a very distinct “season”. The conditions must be just right for the sap to flow. Then the process requires filtering, boiling, refining… all at certain temperatures. As with most things in life, to find the “sweet spot” requires time. I heard that perhaps maple syrup making is more of an “art” than “science”. What happens if you don’t measure temperature to exactly 219 degrees (or whatever…) What happens if we don’t collect when the weather is just right? How do we predict the weather accurately anyway? Our syrup won’t work out, I suspect. If it does, our yield won’t be as good. Nature is always a gamble. That’s why the internet is full of “tips and tricks” on homesteading.

We recently set out to try tapping.

Still, let’s go back to that quote. Only God can see our timelines. We can only see a little “blip” in our reality. We are but dust. We only see specific incidents. Google photos and Facebook remind us of “memories” from this day or that day. Compare it to now, “X” years later. Have we changed? Matured? How many friends have died or left or come in to your lives since then? Technology. Politics. War. The price of groceries. Our physical body and space. Change is constant. Time cannot be saved in a bottle.

God sees the bigger picture. He sees our life as a whole. He orchestrated it. As a whole. As a whole with great purpose and intentionality. If I could plan out my life exactly, or set my kids lives on a piece of cardstock, things would look oh so different. If my mother could have set my life on a piece of index card, I wonder what I would have looked like. God has done just that. He knew us before we were born. He has a plan. He also had a plan, and it was thought through and orchestrated brilliantly. He is working with the dips and divets and dives of nature, allowing for art versus science. Yet His yield is perfection.

His yield is Perfect.

Oh beloveds, is this encouraging to you? I hope it is. Perhaps you are in a season where you simply can’t see a way out. Perhaps you are struggling with not enough time. Perhaps there is too much time to fester in your own self doubts. Perhaps you desperately want to use your time wisely but it is just difficult. Society tells you do this, that, the other thing, and you can’t see the forest for the trees. You’re feeling the time crunch of a season in life. God’s got this. There is a time for everything under the sun. Our little speck of dust has meaning, purpose and intention in God’s agenda book. As for me, I gotta go collect some tree sap. Then maybe a nap, or shave my armpits. Maybe tackle the dishes. Be blessed, my beloveds.