1000 Gifts (Part 16): Agragrian gratitude

This post continues my observations and recounting of God's marvelous gifts which begins here:

249.  My softening heart toward cats

I'm never been much of a cat person because I've never met a cat who liked me.  Most just hiss and show their claws when I'm around.  My husband's college cat instinctively scratched our son when he was a young toddler, so that only increased my dislike of anything feline.

However, over the past few weeks, I have had the pleasure of meeting two very beautiful cats who actually like people.  One such cat lives on the horse farm where our daughter takes horseback riding lessons.  Flitter loves people.

Flitter also likes books.

250.  Written language intelligently organized into educational and entertaining literature

251.  Parenting two children who are eager readers

While his sister rode horses, our 6-year-old read "bed time stories" to Flitter who eventually fell asleep.

252.  A cat's reminder that afternoon naps, or at least the Sabbath rest, should be a priority

253.  The smile on my little girl's face as Socks moves into a fast trot

254.  My parents' faithfulness for the past 16+ years to uphold our annual yard day tradition

When I bought my first house in another state as a single gal, my parents drove over three hours to my house one weekend to assist me with spring landscaping.  Dad brought his pick-up truck so he could haul mulch and various gardening materials from the nearest Lowe's store to my new home. They worked tirelessly in my yard teaching me how to plant and/or doing much of it for me since I'm hopeless when it comes to landscaping.

They probably regret that first trip because when spring (and my birthday) rolled around the next year, I asked them to return and help me in the yard again for my birthday present.  Soon, this annual yard day, mostly involving my parents' help, became an annual tradition.

Now that I have a husband and kids of my own, we all pitch in each year to spread mulch, plant flowers, and clean out flower beds.  Theoretically, everyone should be working on yard day.  Our bunny's job is to supervise the workers.  He did so half-heartedly from the shelter of his igloo.

 

During a break from my labor, I noticed that our baby bunny was nibbling on grass and sweet gum balls (ouch).  For a moment I thought I had found a solution our problem of mass amounts of gum balls falling from a neighbor's tree into our yard but that solution would involve more bunnies. Smile.

255.  Thankfully, these forbidden snacks did not make our bunny sick.

My jobs that day were to cook lunch, coordinate with suppliers, and spread pine needles out back.

256.  Thankfully, no one got sick from my cooking...at least not yet.

Last year, I ended up spreading at least 70 bales. This year, we bought less because out of the four different suppliers we visited, we could only cumulatively procure 52 bales.  I managed to spread 29 bales before the dark clouds rolled into the area  Usually this task, which involves bending over for several hours at a time, causes a relapse of low back pain, but after icing it twice last night, I was pain free this morning.

257.  Healing of my back and regeneration of my spinal discs that I can not only see on the X-Ray but also feel when my spine is tested 

My husband usually buys and spreads mulch around all our flower beds in the front yard.  Our normal mulch supplier was completely sold out of the mulch we needed, but thankfully, our backup supplier had what we needed.

258.  My dad's patience and willingness to drive his truck all over three cities in search of the landscaping materials we needed

He ended up making two trips to Lowe's, one trip to Home Depot, two trips to two different mulch suppliers, and a trip to the yard waste facility in addition to driving almost 75 miles each way to/from our home that day.  God bless my awesome parents!

259.  Our 9-year-old's thoughtfulness and generosity

While shopping with her daddy, my daughter saw this plant and liked it so much that she insisted on buying two as a birthday gift for me with her own money (okay, so technically she only paid for one and a half with her daddy covering the difference).

260.  My husband's servant's heart

My man does not particularly enjoy landscaping.  He may even admit to loathing it.  Yet, when his little girl bought those plants for her mommy, he helped her clean out the flower bed around the mail box and plant them there for me.  While they were digging, a neighbor stopped by while walking her dog to warn them that the plants were poisonous but only when eaten.  Oops!  Maybe these plants will keep out those dogs whose owners disobey the HOA covenants which forbid pet feces in other  homeowner's lawns, and maybe it will keep the deer, who eat all our flowers and blueberries at their peak, away as well.

261.  God's wonderful design in allowing animals to know which flowers are safe to eat and which are not

After helping her daddy plant the flowers around the mail box, our little girl was eager to plant some more.  So, she helped Nana fill up lots of flower pots with new flowers.

262.  Splashes of natural color, which will grow larger all season long, located all around the exterior of our home

She even filled a new rabbit planter with flowers this year in honor of the newest "member" of our family.  This planter is for you, Cody.

I'm not sure what our son's job was yesterday, but he did bring us cheerful company, clip bindings on bales of pine straw, and run miscellaneous errands for us.

263.  New blooms beginning on our rose bushes signaling that spring is here 

264.  The anticipation of an explosion of various natural colors all around us