Bees

One thing is for sure. Each year I learn something more about gardening. I wondered why with all the blossoms this year, I had only a tiny percentage of the fruit in my garden from the year before. My plum tree actually had far more flowers this year, yet only a fraction of the fruit yield. I was perplexed.

A farmer friend solved my puzzle. It wasn't the plant food, or the water, or the sun or the pruning. She asked me how many bees were in my garden this spring. Indeed, a very good question. Not that many. Well, not compared to last year when my neighbour had a wild bee hive growing in the garage on the back of their property.

I had been a bit fazed by the bees. They were swarming in my garden, dive bombing me as I put out the washing. As I am allergic to bees, this became a nuisance and a nightmare. I did feel sorry for them when they were exterminated.

I thought about the person who had discovered a bee hive under their BBQ. They had posted pictures from every angle of the huge honeycomb that hung from the BBQ and dripped honey all over their patio. I wondered if the old couch that had housed the bee hive next door had a honeycomb interior. I never did learn whether it did or not.

Now I know that last year these bees were busy as bees are. Last year they were visiting nectarines, plums and grapes. Last year they helped produce a bumper crop. Well, I can't have it both ways; less bees and less fruit. I do wish wasps had a more productive part in the garden because nothing seems to diminish their presence.

It just goes to show, that often when we are being buzzed by bees, it may be because they are busy working and we are in the way. We only see what we see and experience and often are ungrateful for things simply because they seem to be pests to us. Yet, God has his servants, and his purposes buzzing away, leading us to fruitful seasons up ahead, and we often don't realise that it was those annoying little things that were actually doing us the most good.

You might ask 'like what'? Well for example, ending up with a minor injury in hospital for a day or two. It is painful and inconvenient, but then a person next to you in the bed in the same ward, needs to know something of the love of God and there you are right in the right place after all. Or, smaller still, getting delayed by some annoying telemarketer and heading off into the traffic a few minutes later than you planned. A car accident just up ahead makes you realise, just a few minutes earlier, if you had left on time, that would have been you being cut out of that car. Or some annoying person taking too long to serve you, might just be saving you from being knocked over by a speeding cyclist, who now hits nothing and goes on in the grace of God, on his merry way.

Thanks be to God for bees.

Cherries

Last year, the birds got my three cherries. I had wrapped the tree in bird netting and then noticed one of the cherries as it just came half ripe had disappeared! So I put a double wrap around the tree, but this just gave the birds a stronger toe hold to steal from. I didn't get to try any. Well, I will confess, I did find one cherry half pecked and a bit sizzled by the sun and was so annoyed, I pecked the other side and then dropped it in horror that I had been so desperate for a sample of my first cherries that I could have done such a thing.

First fruits. Well, they went to God's creatures. An offering to God. I often think as I see the little containers that are dappled about on the pavement in places like Bali, about how many of God's creation get to enjoy the offerings laid out for the deities. Sweet cut fruit and scented flowers, within the grasp of a hungry monkey must be such a gift. If I think about my cherries being processed by a thrush or a blackbird on behalf of God, then it isn't quite so bad.

There's nothing like delayed gratification to work character into a person. I never learned that as a young person. But now, I can thank God that I have a chance when I have to wait another year for another hope of tasting a cherry.

But a year has gone by. This time, I learned from my past failure. My cherry tree was bursting with blossoms. So, I bought two huge frames. They were meant to be garden arches. They had to be fitted together and that was no easy task. Then I threw two huge nets over them and pegged them all around the tree. This meant I had purchased, two nets, two arches and several packets of metal pegs. Cost? Maybe $50, if I add it all up.

The flowers dropped their petals and small fruit hung from little clusters on the boughs. But within a few weeks, it became apparent that there were just two cherries. Yes, just two. My huge frame and netting plan was for two cherries. Two cherries, might cost about 10 cents I suppose. But they were my cherries on my tree!

I finally tasted my cherries. I was a little premature, but also nervous that one more day to ripen them just a little more might mean one more day for a wiley bird to figure how to steal them. Life is a cherry they say. And I love cherries and I love a lot of things about life too. And sometimes, life like these cherries, after all the anticipation and best laid plans, just tasted, ok. Not wonderful, not delectible, not bursting with sweet juice and flavour, just ok.

But, it was all still worth it. I cheated the birds and this time, it was my turn to eat the fruit of my labour. Maybe God feels like this, when he waits patiently, tends our souls, guards us, feeds us, gives us living water and then some temptation comes along and steals our hearts. Then he waits again for the right time, and we ripen for his harvest again.

Sometimes, we offer ourselves and it is good, but it is just ok. Sometimes, we offer ourselves and what we give is the best of everything within us. I want to offer the best to him. If my life is a cherry to him, then I want my life to be like those big sweet fruitful ones that I still remember from two years ago from the country stand.

blossoms are hard to predict

Time races by as spring arrives. It is a while since I had time to write anything about my garden. Now the days are warming up, I hope to have much more time to sit in my 'Jesus' tree and contemplate God's greatness and goodness.

Spring arrives with wonderful bursts of leaf and then surprises of poppies and daffodils and freesias that you forgot were there. Trees go the other way around and push out delicate pink or white blossoms and the boronias flower and perfume half the garden while the jasmine completes the fragrance in the other half.

Funny thing, this year, my dwarf nectarine had just one blossom! For the past few years it has been coated in blossoms. Then, most seem to come to nothing and I am lucky if I get two or three small nectarines. I really must think about what that poor tree needs to eat! One blossom! Yet, even more surprising, the one blossom has a nectarine growing! Maybe it will become one very large and healthy one.

My plum tree had more blossoms than ever this year, which caused me to send the fix-it man out to put up poles and erect a shade cloth over the little deck he created last year. That should keep the possum droppings, bird droppings and most of all, half eaten plums and plum residue from all the wild-life I feed from this tree, off the picnic table.

Hundreds more blossoms on the plum tree would surely have meant hundreds more plums. Not so. Last year, it didn’t look like a lot of blossom, yet the tree was laden. My favourite visitor was the bat that came each night and hung upside down munching contentedly away. This year, there are so few plums, my birds and night visitors are going to be a bit disappointed.

Now, to watch the cherry tree and there were lots of blossoms there but so far just a few tiny little growths from them. Well, the bird net is over the tree so maybe this year I might get to taste one, if they grow any bigger.

Some people have lots of words and sound great, but then when you wait to see what kind of spiritual fruit will really grow in their lives, not a lot happens, or it is small or not very sweet. Others, seem to not have much to say, and not much fussing, yet suddenly you notice they are full of sweet spiritual fruit and they are able to feed lots of hungry souls with their wisdom and love.

I guess, part of it is what we receive during the silent and cold months of spiritual winter. Whether we rest in God and soak up the nutrients showered on us. Sometimes it is good for us to accept the sometimes smelling stuff that we seem to have land on us, for what may appear to be no good reason. There’s a time for letting other people dump on us, for their sakes, as long as it is only for a season. Listening to others can give us deeper compassion and make us reach deeper for answers in prayer.

But everyone needs a personal spring season. Everyone

Spring bulbs

Even though it is winter, the hope of spring is there. My bulbs, planted in late summer are in full leaf. Pushing up through the grass-like growth are stems, full and pregnant with blooms yet to open. Some will be the creamy coloured, sweet scented clusters of early Cheer. Daffodils of different varieties will burst in golden splashes and freesias, white or purple will wave their trumpet-like blooms and shake the perfume from their throats.

To give the bulbs a good chance, it is a good idea to keep them in the refrigerator, dark and cold. Then they are dropped into the soil to wait for yet a few more cold months. As the faintest signs of the sun moving into the new season, they stir with life and break free from the soil.

My spiritual walk can be like this too. I grumble because sometimes it seems that I have been waylaid, forgotten and kept in some cold, lifeless place. Then I pray and it can happen that things get worse! Down into the despair of the soil, where I almost succumb to wishing it truly were a grave.

But I don’t have the right to give up. A bulb that sits in the ground, wallowing in too much sorrow and water will rot. One that sits in dry ground, unable to find living water can wither. But the bulb that is sensitive to the touch of life abides only until the season is right, then it takes the moment and reaches for the sun.

For a long time, the flower is nurtured within the stem, closed to view. But a day comes when it is ripe. Sometimes we are called to bloom in some way or another, just for a moment. Life opens for a time and we bless others with the fragrance of Jesus. A word in season, a prayer that has God’s grace, spoken at an apt time, these are the things that are the promise of new life in us.

I can never look at a daffodil without seeing the praise of God in the brightness of its colour, nor breathe the good scents of fresh spring flowers without sensing the perfume of praise from even nature itself. Our praise is a sweet aroma to God, and our hearts are seen to him, like opening buds.

May the garden of my heart be like the hope of spring to Him. As he comes to walk in the garden with me, may he see that I have waited with patience for his new season.

Fig Tree

Yesterday I had a fight with my fig tree. I love my fig tree, it produces very sweet figs. It is a huge tree and is able to satisfy me, some of my fig loving family, the birds, the possums and the bats. It is a rich producing tree.

Now that it is winter, the leaves have dropped off, probably mostly into the guttering on our roof! But the branches are now bare and grey.

Last winter, I decided that I was going to be brave and cut this tree back rather mercilessly. I hoped I wouldn’t harm it, but the branches were tangling with the phone lines to the house and shading a number of other plants I have in the front garden.

By summer, I couldn’t believe how this tree had recovered from my pruning and how huge it grew! It was reaching for the skies. New branches now shaded more plants and the height of the tree was of no help to me in gathering the best figs which always seem to be on the top.

So, this year I have decided the pruning becomes more brutal. I will have to get a saw and bring down those lofty arms and cut the tree down to size. It must have some of its pride leveled. If I don’t do this, who knows but next year it will dominate everything from one side of my house to the other.

Do I hate my tree? Is this why I am going to cut it and watch the sap drain out of the stumps? Am I angry with the tree? The answer is obvious. Of course not! I love my fig tree. I want it to flourish in the garden and produce good figs for me next year, especially ones that I can reach. . But I must manage the tree. It is not the only tree or plant in my garden. Everything must live in harmony there.

I have noticed in my long years as a Christian that it seems that the trees that bear the most for God that are richest in his grace and knowledge, are often the ones that God is toughest with. I see it in my own life, but of course, I moan the most when the cuts come to me!

Watching someone else getting pruned by God can make me feel empathetic, but I can often find an encouraging scripture for them. However, when it is me, I usually resort to accusing God of causing me pain. In my old years I am trying to learn not to do this as it only shows a lack of sight and understanding of this life from God’s perspective.

Yesterday, I started pruning the fig tree. I first spent time examining which branches would need to be cut. This didn’t mean I just looked at dead branches and it meant that some of the branches I have earmarked for the cut are the biggest and healthiest ones. We often wonder why God cuts things that seem to us to be good.

I had to climb into the tree at one stage and pull back a springy branch so that I could get at another on the other side of the tree. I climbed in and cut the branch I had identified and then had to haul it back out. As I retreated, the springy branch came back and whacked me in the mouth! I nearly got a fat lip from my fig tree!

I couldn’t blame the tree; it can’t understand why I might be hurting it so cruelly. Me and the tree don’t really have good communication as the tree doesn’t speak my language. I just have to hope that it understands that it can trust me and that I have its best interests at heart. Plus, it needs to know that I have the power to chop it down completely. It exists for me. It is there for my pleasure.

Pro 27:18 Whoever takes care of a fig tree can eat its fruit,

The big tidy

When I weed, I pull an unwanted hunk of green here and there. Sometimes I am a little more industrious and actually concentrate on tidying up a flower bed or a section of the garden. When my husband has a back yard blitz, he is far more brutal.

This weekend, he attacked the grass growing over the concrete path, dug sharp cuts along the grassed edges of the mowing strips and ‘thinned’ the vines on the fence. Now, I would cut them back and leave a short curtain of jasmine and ivy but he sees a trim as annihilation! The fence is bald, but for a few straggles of jasmine and a thin line or two of ivy!

At first I gasped to see such havoc, but then, after years of experiencing shock like this, I knew that his ‘discipline’ was the act of the husbandman of our garden. He has the focus of the male mind and if his garden needs to be brought into line, it will certainly know who is boss! For me, I am fearful of bruising the garden’s little psyche.

In a week or two, the scars of bare dirt will be covered again with soft grass and fresh new fronds of vine will be edging back up the fence. But they will be in control. With my ‘soft’ options, no doubt one day the fence itself would groan with the weight of the vines and simply fall over. The concrete path would disappear beneath the marching grasses.

Sometimes, I think God is way too hard on me. But he is the husbandman of my inner garden. I must trust him. Though he seems to cut me sometimes deeply, he only wants to keep me from falling. He wants to keep me from being blinded by slow creeping edges that will stop me from making plain the path to truth.

I must learn to love and submit to his ROD well as his guiding staff.

Water

How amazing water is. My plants survived the big dry with the help of grey water but they don't thrive with this second hand wash water. A day or two with some decent showers and everything responds with life. My water tanks are overflowing at last.

I just learned something the other day and after living a number of decades it astonished me to think that I had lived all these years believing something that was entirely wrong about something that seemed so sure. I learned that rain drops were not in the shape of a tear. No, indeed! They are flat on the bottom and kind of heaped in a round on top.

I thought of all the pictures I must have drawn as a child of Auckland's ubiquitous rain drops. I thought about watching drops forming into tear shapes from dripping umbrellas and tree leaves. I never realised that once gravity pulled them from their cling, they would flatten out and round out before the final splatter.

I have been cheated really. Everyone assumes rain drops are tear shaped. Yet, if we had thought about it a little more, it does make sense. It just isn’t quite as attractive to imagine. Instead of lovely tears falling softly from heaven, we have jelly puddings, splotting everywhere. Not quite the same.

Truth isn’t always what we think either. Just because we are sure of something, it doesn’t make it true. You can live on the washing machine water that is dished out by the wisdom of man. It has some life. But the water Jesus offered was pure. It doesn’t always fit what I like to see and it isn’t always pretty, but just a few drops of what falls from heaven changes everything. We were made for this water to fill us and anything less just leaves us feeling duped.

The Jesus Seat

I often wonder if a hammock returns me to the primal sense of being in a cradle. It feels so comforting and good. The gentle swinging, the feeling of canvas tight to my body, perhaps may return feelings even earlier than birth. So, my favourite place to sit in the garden to pray and talk to Jesus is in my hammock, swinging seat. I call it my ‘Jesus’ seat.

The sun dapples through the spreading tree above and the light slides across my Bible in slices of brightness and shade. From here I can almost hear the bean seeds pushing through the dirt. They grow so fast that they remind me of the ‘Jack in the beanstalk’ story.

Nestled in my Jesus seat, I am returned to my origins. Safe in the hold of my saviour, I am at peace. In Him I have my being. When I return to this most natural setting, my roof a canopy of leaves, I find myself able to draw from His life and strength. I can almost hear the growth of His spirit filling my being making me bigger than I am.

Only by returning to a hidden place with Him, can I receive what I need to be able to push back into the world and jostle with daily stresses. I call the tree, my ‘Jesus tree’ because when I am in my ‘Jesus seat’ under this tree, everything relates to Jesus. From here I find the nurture I need to grow tall and become productive.

The beans are small at the moment, but their leaves are stretched out as if they were in praise. They surrender their flat growth to the sun and in return receive its life and power. Soon, they will turn to bushes of green and provide me with beans for the table.

From my Jesus seat, I surrender my life afresh and pray for my life to be fruitful for the master’s glory.

It rained last night

It was windy yesterday, but it rained. My garden received about 10mls and the dust and ash washed from the tired leaves.

Something has discovered passionfruit is edible; something that munches almost perfect huge round holes in the fruit. It must be resolute to munch through the bitterness of a passionfruit shell.

I am so thankful for rain that sharing a few passionfruit with some creature is a joy. After the tension of waiting for any drop of rain to moisten my garden, just a few mls is enough to make me thankful. When I lived in Auckland, rain was a constant gift and yet for me a depressant and reason to complain.

God sends some of us to Australia to learn to be thankful for rain!

An old poem I read this morning:

Things that hurt and things that mar
Shape the man for perfect praise;
Shock and strain and ruin are
Friendlier than the smiling days. Anon

Bagged grapes

I lost my three cherries to the birds this year and all my grapes last year; all two bunches of them. But this spring, a friend who knows lots about grapevines came and pruned my grapes. They are now being trained to grow over my grape arbour. I can sit on the seat and enjoy the filtered sun as it falls on the spreading leaves.

My vines produced a dozen bunches. I netted the grapevine, but then couldn't sit in my arbour! The birds got inside it and panicked as they were trapped and I didn't want to hurt the little thieves! So I was at a loss as to how to save my grapes to at least get to taste one or two.

I read online that one idea was to bag each bunch in brown paper bags, tying them securely at the top with twisty wire. So, I thought I would try this. The grapes don't need the direct sun to ripen them as the sun on leaves will produce the ripeness. Each bunch was duly wrapped, with some scepticism.

I have been delighted to find that the possums leave the bags alone, the birds ignore them and I am getting to eat bunch after bunch of sweet trophies. What is great is that I go down to my grapevines with my secateurs and pick a ‘bag’ of grapes.

Cockatoo

This morning a cockatoo came to find some food in my garden. It pecked around on the grass for a while, then enjoyed the view from the top of my beans.

Not a lot grows in the heat right now, but I do have one Lebanese cucumber trying to fatten on the one lonely vine that survived summer. I have planted some baby bok choy and if we ever get any rain, they may grow.

Some people say I am crazy having a bird friendly garden. The bird bath attracts everything from pigeons to black cockatoos. Every feathered and flying creature, including bats, know about my garden. They are there to entertain me and to share more than their fair share of whatever bears fruit. At least the plum tree produces enough for everything and sometimes there is enough even for me.

state of my garden

At the end of a devastating summer, my garden is fatigued. So little water, such abominable heat. It reached 47 degrees on the hottest day. Black Saturday. The smoke is still thinly covering the sky to remind us of the sadness lingering only thirty minutes from where we live. So many lost their lives and the charred ground and littered remains of people's homes remind us that it will be a long time before these areas know joy again.

Yet, peace can be found and a garden can remind us of loss and renewal. Sometimes I look at my own life and can see the charred and painful valleys that still have never been restored. It is these blackened parts of my emotion that have driven me to seek the only one who can make life out of my own devastated heart.