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