Saturday, January 21, 2012

Psalm 92:12...a somewhat tenuous link to our garden clean-up


"The righteous flourish like the palm tree..."

We heard a sermon on this Psalm last Sunday in church.

The simile (or is that a metaphor?) in verse 12 is certainly apt. Our backyard is a jungle of golden cane palm trees that are flourishing. Chris and our neighbour from behind our house spent most of this morning thinning the ones along our back fence out as part of a much bigger garden clean up we have happening here at the moment. The neighbour was pretty enthusiastic about it with his chainsaw. I think he was keen to improve his view since his house is higher up the hill than ours.

So now we have a much thinner privacy screen from our back neighbours. And palm branches and trunks all over the yard waiting to be taken away. The neighbour did take some of it. Two birds' nests were located in the process, one with two babies in it. The neighbour's wife took it off to their next door neighbour for identification on what kind of bird it was (he thought maybe kookaburras but I haven't seen any in our yard). Chris couldn't remember what they did with it after that, so I am really hoping it ended up somewhere that the mother bird could find it again.

But the big clean up isn't over yet. We have another jungle of palms around our pool that need the same treatment. We're paying someone to do that. And to trim our enormous fig tree that is equally difficult to keep under control and is busy all year round shedding something or other for us to sweep up (leaves, flowers, little figgy things). And then they will take away all the rubbish afterwards.

If we ever buy another house I'll be looking for one that has no palm (or fig) trees anywhere near it. Never believe a real estate ad that tells you a house has a low maintenance garden if there are either of these trees in it.

Still, isn't it great to know that the Bible tells us the righteous will flourish like these trees do? And that it is full of truth, even on such mundane matters as what grows well in gardens?

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