Yesterday was Friday and it was a busy day. I left the house shortly after 8:00 a.m. Bill only had to work 1/2 day so I knew there were be someone home to play with Miss Maya. Anyway, I managed to take care of two cards stores. Then I headed over the my "fun" job with the kids. After I finished up there, it was time for my dinner date with a great friend, Grace. I've know Grace for 30 some odd years. We've stayed in touch all this time. If the past few years, we seemed to have been meeting up at group functions - usually funerals. But this time we got our acts together and made a dinner date. It was great catching up. And I love how you have friendships that may have a lot of space in between them, but when you do get together, it doesn't seem like it has been that long ago. I'm made a note in my calendar Grace - we'll officially meet up again during the summer.
Whew.... for a while there, I thought I was going to have to grow fins to stay afloat. It has been raining consistently for the past few days. Hopefully everything that needed moisture has received it's share and we can move on to the sunshine part of the recipe. I went to work at my card store this morning and when I pulled into the drive way, I noticed a bunch of dandelions. Obviously they were happy with all the rain we have received. So I grabbed my handy/dandy dandelion digger (I can't remember the correct name - OK) and I headed out to removed these pesky little weeds - after about 50 of them, the front lawn appeared green for the most part (still some dry stuff working it's way out) I returned my "digger" to it's rightful place on the garage wall and headed in side. I quickly made my way to Bill's office where I could observe the completion of my handy work - and what do you suppose I saw.... at least three more dandelions. So in a matter of 2, maybe 3 minutes, those "crafty" colorful, and sometimes, tasty, weeds had hastily shown their true colors, and I'm pretty sure it was just to spite me.
I came across a Dandelion remedy (actually it's called a Dandelion Killer, but that sounds too violent). They say to mix 4 litres of vinegar and 1 lb of table salt in a pan. Bring to a boil and add 8 drops of dish soap. Pour the mixture into a bottle and spray directly in the middle of the dandelion. Has anyone ever tried this? Why couldn't dandelions be considered a bedding plant. Seems I'm spending more time on taking care of them, then I am taking "care" of my approved bedding plants. There is something so wrong with this picture.
I came across this "story" about the Dandelion. Terry, I think you will find it very fitting with the classes you are taking. It sure made me think about my prospective on the hardy plant.
You Cannot Pick a Dandelion
Written by Arthur P. Moor.
Published in Education as an Art Vol. 25, #1 - Autumn 1965
"Isn't it wonderful," said the teacher, "when you go out into the woods and fields, to see what strange and beautiful things are coming up out of the ground! Trees and flowers, grass and bushes, and all kinds of plants, no two alike, with all sorts of different shapes and colors - have you looked closely at some of these?"
Certainly they had. They were normal youngsters, nine-, ten-, and eleven-year olds, naturally interested in anything they could push, pull, touch, lift, examine, taste, hear, or smell.
"Tell me what you have seen," said the teacher. In no time they had recalled berry-bushes, Indian pipes, Jack-in-the-pulpits, many kinds of trees with commentary on which were best for climbing -and a variety of field flowers and stinging nettles.
"Well," said the teacher, 'I wonder if any of you know about something I saw the other day. If you know the name of it, don't say it, but raise your hand if you think you know. Walking across a field I saw a slender stem coming up about nine or ten inches from a small plant, and on top of the stem a little ball of white, fluffy stars. If you pick the stem and blow, whoof, they scatter into a whole galaxy of stars." There were shining eyes and eager hands raised -
"DON'T SAY IT!" said the teacher. "But I wonder if any of you know what was there before the ball of stars appeared? If so, what did it look like?"
"There was a little yellow flower, with lots of tiny petals all crowded together," said one.
"It looked something like a little sunflower, only there was no brown center," said another. "It was all full of the little petals, like an aster or a chrysanthemum."
"Right!" said the teacher. "And what was it like before that yellow flower opened?"
"It looked like a little umbrella, upside down and almost closed, with a yellow lining showing," said a girl, holding out one hand, palm up, thumb and finger tips together making a bud-like form.
"Right!" said the teacher. "And what was it like before that? Somebody else."
"A tight little cone-shaped green bud," said a boy, making a tighter bud with his fingers, lower down, remembering the stem was then not so high.
By this time some were fairly bursting to name it. "No," said the teacher. "Don't name it yet. But what was it like before that?"
"Just a little bunch of leaves coming out from the center, a sort of green rosette," said a girl.
"And before that?"
"Just a tiny little bit of green coming up out of the dirt!"
"Right!" said the teacher. "Now what do you call all of this?"
"DANDELION!" they exploded in chorus.
"YES!" said the teacher. "Do you like dandelions?" he continued. Of course, they liked dandelions. Who doesn't enjoy the green buds with yellow linings, the cheery gold blossoms scattered among the grass, and the marvelous airy globes of elfin stars - until he has acquired a prejudice, and learned to resent them as an intruder in lawns?
"Did you ever pick dandelions?" Yes, they had all picked dandelions.
"No you haven't!" said the teacher. "You cannot pick a dandelion! It is impossible to pick a dandelion! What was it you picked, Bill?"
"It was like what you said at first," said Bill. "The whole ball of fluff that you can blow."
"What! No yellow flower? No little bud, like the upside-down umbrella, nearly closed, with the yellow lining showing? No tight green cone? No cluster of green leaves all coming out from the center? -What was yours like, Anne?"
"I've picked whole bunches of dandelions as yellow flowers," said Anne. "You know, we used to take one and hold it under somebody's chin and say, 'Do you love butter?' Then we'd look to see if the yellow color was reflected from under their chin."
"But when you got a yellow flower, you couldn't blow any white stars from it, could you? And did any of you bother to pick dandelions when you only saw tight green buds, or the plant leaves? But you all said that a dandelion is really all of this. Whatever you picked, you only got a fragment of something.
"You cannot really pick a dandelion --for a dandelion is not a thing that exists all at once. It is a performance. And it only happens when the sun and earth, the sky and water are all working together. The pattern may be in the seed, as the pattern of music is in the score, but it doesn't come to life till the players play it, or the singers sing it The score becomes music only as the players and singers pour themselves into the performance, just as the sun and earth and air and water pour themselves into a dandelion. And every plant, and every living thing is really a world performance -even you."
They were suddenly quiet for a moment.
This was the first lesson in botany.
"Every living thing is a world performance." This is the heart of it a realization that illuminates not only botany but every human life and action.
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