Lessons from My Garden

By Kay McCracken
Salmon Arm, BC

Birds don’t normally visit my porch garden, because they know I have a cat. Katie is actually a princess angel cleverly disguised as a cat in velvety black and white fur. When I brush her the fur in the brush is grey. Black and white equals grey. Yin and yang equals balance. A garden is a place of harmony, of serenity, or so you would think.

I’ve watched epic struggles; a wasp caught in a spider’s web doomed the more he or she struggles. Lesson #1: The more you struggle the more tangled up you become.

I’ve followed the progress of an ant hauling something twice her size back to the nest. She never gives up. Lesson#2: You can accomplish anything no matter how big the task. One step at a time.

And the snails that emerge after a rain; fascinating to watch, and smart. They no longer head to the road where they would be crushed, but instead they congregate — the whole clan of aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents — in my porch garden where they know they’ll be safe. Lesson #3: Know who your friends are.

Now back to birds. As is my custom I sit on the love seat writing in the early morning. My view of the garden through the glass door includes flowering pepper and strawberry plants, tall flowering tomato plants, sweet pea vines climbing a trellis, and blossoms of purple, rose, and crimson.

A shelving unit holds treasured items. A peaceful scene. Suddenly, a swift movement. Something darts onto the third shelf down. I peer through tomato branches. A black-capped chickadee is pecking at something. What? There isn’t any food. I strain to see.

Her beak begins to fill up with something. It’s more obvious when I see the bushy grey mustache emerge! Miss chickadee has filled her beak with Katie’s soft grey fur culled from the cat brush on the shelf.

Lesson #4: Never underestimate your ability to find what you need in unlikely places. Think outside your comfort zone, or nest, as the case may be.

Lessons from My Garden?
Copyright © Kay McCracken, 2020