The Flip Side

Though I often complain about the hot weather in South Texas, any part of Texas really, there is a flip side to the searing, breathtaking heat. It’s our very long growing season! This is mid-November and I have multiple tomato plants with blooms and tomatoes on them. A rogue squash plant or two coming up in my compost pile, my ‘blessing’ basil plant in the veggie garden is doing so much better than the ones I actually planted in the herb garden. I call all volunteer plants “blessing’ plants. I have several, all types, thriving in the veggie garden this fall. The Swiss chard and mustard greens are beautiful and lush. They are the only thing growing better than the weeds that took hold during the drought.

After years of unsuccessful attempts to grow chile piquin peppers and having tried all forms of sow/growing methods to no avail; I have a ‘blessing’ piquin plant that popped up by itself! This was a delightful treat to discover. My Honey says it will need to be transplanted to a spot where it will have some shade. With any luck at all, it will survive the winter and be hardy enough to transplant in the spring. Since it began as a ‘blessing’ plant, I have high hopes!

Green beans are producing nicely, they are not edible but there are plenty of them. Guess the timing and weather plays a big part in the tough, bitter pods. I’m leaving them to go to seed for next year; they replenish the soil, bonus!

And the big exciting news is that my treasured fig tree has little figs all over it. This poor little tree has survived two years of drought and a shaky start considering it is planted on top of our hill, our rock hill. It’s still barely above knee height; my knees…I’m short, ‘nuff said. So to find it covered in leaves and figs after it dropped all leaves and shriveled during the roughest of summer heat, well, lets just say I give all the credit where credit is due…prayer and the Master Gardener, God.

As with most of my long stories this one does have a point, an analogy, or a modern day parable. In this world we often find ourselves in places and situations we find less than desirable. I love the view from our hilltop vantage point but, because we have that view, we do not have good gardening land and normal soil. Our typical weather is hot to extremely hot nine months out of the year. The other three months, we can vary from fabulous to chilly with moments of actual cold. Towering trees we do not have but we are on the Monarch Butterfly migration path in the fall; they fly directly over our front deck. Too awesome! God-given flip sides.

I’ve said all that to say this: regardless of location or circumstance, regardless of stage we find ourselves in life, in spite of the highest highs and lowest lows that come our way….God holds us in His hands and little miracles, like my blessing plants, come through as if to say, “Behold, I am with you always.”