Weeds or Flowers?

If you focus on the weeds, they multiply.

I'm truly literally serious here. Every year since we got married, I have focused on the hundreds of thousands of weeds on this place. We're surrounded on 3 sides by lush weed pasture and they have a way of coming into my yard uninvited and never leaving.

There's dandelions, thistles, bindweed, kosha, pigweed, whitetop, goat heads, grasses of all kinds, and more I don't even know the name of.

Each spring, I begin the endless process of spraying, pulling, weed-eating, mowing, mulching, hoeing, smothering, burning, sterilizing, .... every way I can possibly think of getting rid of these weeds. And each year, no matter what method I use, there's even more weeds the next year.

It's the 7th year and I'm beginning to feel desperate. I'd like to have time for swimming, riding along with Ross, or even scrubbing my windows. Anything but dealing with one more weed!

Then one day my dad told me something that triggered a new thought pattern. He said, "Weeds thrive in poor soil."

Another day my mom made the comment that "flowers do better if they're close together."

Just little everyday bits of wisdom.

But it began to change my view of these weeds. Maybe instead of focusing on the weeds, I need to build up my soil. Do a soil test, see what's missing, and go from there. Perhaps I need to plant more flowers , or help the flowers I already have to grow bigger and healthier. That way there's less room for weeds.

And isn't that just exactly how it is in life, too...