Watching the World

I've been watching the world through a bit of a magnifying glass the last couple of days. Let's just say the news isn't good. Relations with Israel may be falling apart at the seams because our President wants them to "just let it go", and they aren't about to do that.

I mean, would you allow your step brother to put up a house and garage on your acre of land? Let's not even consider that Palestine wants to take over the entire coastline, leaving Israel in a pretty indefensible spot, tucked right in there for easy attack.

Normally, I don't like talking politics and religion--or writing about it for that matter, because I am not someone who gets too involved in politics, and I've found that religion just makes everybody mad--so I stick to my views and pretty much keep it quiet. It would be so much easier if people would just get along.

Take my husband, for example (please!). He's making decisions about the yard and wanting to make some major changes. Some of which I'm fine with--others, I'm not so fine with, and he's unmovable in his resolve. He told me a year ago to move my tall phlox, which come up every spring, and look so pretty and purple against the side of our house--a place where he's never so much as gotten a rototiller in--let alone a shovel, but he expects me to dig them all up, move them to another location, which he hasn't prepared, and then expects me to water and keep them from dying in the hot sun, when he hasn't even replaced the garden hose! He's basically being unreasonable. The area is full of stones and hard. The phlox found they're way into little cracks, and the ants have carried seed all the way down the hill. Most years they are beautiful--this year he wants to spray them all with Round Up to put in annuals that he can till under next spring.

And that will be the end of his involvement with plants...one year. I know this from experience. He bought impatiens one year, and that year they were just beautiful. The following year, they did not return, and he did not replant. The flowers that I plant, re-seed themselves. Yes, I have weeds. But for a while I have beautiful flowers that he hasn't provided since the first year we lived here.

It's a very sad story. If I move my plants now, I will lose them anyway. My lavender, my Johnny jump ups, my phlox, and a yellow thing, that I'm really not fond of, but that's beside the point. He's also talking about moving the peonies, and you shouldn't move peonies until they have done with their flowering. He also wants to take out my big beautiful lilac bush and put it elsewhere, but hasn't said where. I love getting in my car and smelling my lilac bush! I'd have it by my bedroom window if I could!

So right now, I am not speaking to him. I am too miffed for words. I've allowed these plants to provide as they desired, and now I'm going to lose them. And I'm miffed about it. I keep trying to think of another place to put them, and none comes to mind...someplace where I can watch them, and look at them, and see them grow. Right now all I can see is them dying in the sunshine. I'm so sad.

Forget about the rest of the world, and take care of your own backyard.