26 APRIL 2023 OVERNIGHT

We were blessed with quite a lot of rain here yesterday, and just overnight the grass and emerging weeds have turned green. I have seen a few brave dandelions already peeking their smiling faces through the soil. Within a few days I know that their large extended families will join them, adorning my yard in bright yellow and providing nutrient rich greens for my salads. I have grown weary of the anemic looking, weeks old lettuce that I have had to buy from the local supermarket.

It amazes me to see the synchronicity in Nature. Thanks to their underground communication systems, trees of the same species bloom all at the same time. In a mere 24 hour period, the outdoors changes into something tantalizingly beautiful, kind of like the scenes in a film, but far better because the flowering trees and shrubs share their heady fragrance with the world. They do not do this for our benefit; however. Their scent is there to attract pollinators, to carry the pollen from flower to flower, thereby helping them to produce fruit and the next generation of flowers. This in turn helps the pollinators that feed on their nectar.

Hummingbirds, bees, butterflies, and moths often have host-specific plants for which they are perfectly adapted. These relationships between plants and pollinators have existed for eons. Then humans arrived on the scene and made a terrible mess of things. One day, hopefully, all humans will awaken and realize that we must return life on Earth to the natural balance that once existed. It really is up to us. We human beings must pay the consequences of our actions, both individually and collectively. We must “get back to the garden.”