Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Life's Little Surprises



Several weeks ago I purchased ten strawberry plants from my local home improvement store.   I diligently worked a bunch of compost into the dirt and lovingly planted each plant. Then gently watered them.  To be honest they didn't look great when they came out of the package but I had hope and visions of  huge, red, juice dripping strawberries nestled in rich, billowing whipped cream.

But reality hit when I came out to see how they were doing two days later, for it had rained during that time, and found that the local feral cats liked the nice soft soil to do their business in, unearthing my plants in the process.  So I cleaned out the mounds as best I could and replanted them.  Everything seemed fine for a couple of days, then it happened again.  Needless to say my strawberry plants never took. They were still  dried up, pathetic looking, blackened roots. Oh well.

I continued to have faith and checked on them a few days later to find something else had sprouted.  Pumpkins!  Yes, you read right, pumpkins. The seeds must have come from the pumpkin innards I threw in the compost pile back in October.  They were just waiting for the right combination to break free.

So I'll have to go to the farm stand or a U-pick for my luscious strawberries but now I can dream of carving home grown pumpkins for Halloween.


How's your green thumb?  Have you ever had something go wrong but something good came out of it?



4 comments:

  1. Good luck with those pumpkins! We had an unexpected pumpkin patch last year too and it was fun to watch them grow. I have a black thumb and even my boss who owns a nursery has stopped trying to populate my desk with live plants. :)

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  2. Thanks Debbie.

    Me too. Giving me a plant is like giving it a death sentence. lol

    How'd your pumpkins turn out?

    Thanks for coming by.

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  3. I see this story as an analogy for our plans in life. We imagine it being something different from what it turns out to be, but after much grumbling and hysterics we accept and perhaps even embrace it.

    An online friend of mine, Gwen Hernandez writes novels. In the meantime, she has taught Scrivener classes and has a blog in which she posts about Scrivener. Last year she published Scrivener for Dummies, a non-fiction book she had never planned to write. Life is funny that way.

    I think that's why we need to keep our hearts and minds open to opportunities, even if they weren't on our original plan for our future.

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  4. Life definitely has a mind of it's own. You're right, you need an open mind and heart to to get the most out of life.

    That's great about your friend, Gwen. Hope she did well with her book.
    Thanks for stopping by.

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