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Thorny Wild Strawberry Bush
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Thorny Wild Strawberry Bush
Whenever my wife and I walk early in the every morning, there is a cool wind that is always fresh. My wife seldom complains of headache or being fatigued, but she always overcomes that and walks with me all the time, how I am thankful to her that she still walks with me.
When I walk about ½ of a mile from my senior apartment, there is the entrance to the apartments but also the entire complex as well. Despite being a ½ mile distance, many of the workers from hospice within the complex or the office would drive by. When I wave at them to greet them, even those who had a tiring night time shift would also wave happily and pass by, or in some cases would open the window and loudly shout at us a response and pass by. Even some rarely having to rush to their workplace would gladly greet us and wave. What a blessing to start the day!
While waving at several drivers, I would by that time be already at the entrance of the apartment complex. Despite being early morning, the main road is big so there are quite a few cars roaming about in the streets. Turning left about a 100 meters distance, I would have to walk a bit more and turn right to get to our hiking area. Whenever I am walking on the main road and the 100 meter distance walk, I try not to wave at all the cars passing by – as some people might think I’m insane or something. However, some of the employees getting into the apartment who knows me would honk their horn and pass by, waving their hand. I would wave also as a response but the car would be already in the entrance area most of the times.
When I pass another 100 meters or so and turn right, there are many well-constructed houses with many trees in their property. After I get to that road, I would wave at any and all drivers brightly. But unlike their smiles, the scene around the area is anything but picturesque. Because of the persistent drought issues and of the water saving policy, all the green grass had turned yellow and dead. Many of the house owners know that the grass will never turn green even if watering it, so they just leave the yellow grass as it is. There are some vine-like plants that were planted long time ago that would survive the hardest droughts but even those were also dying out.
While passing from the hideous garden front, seeing some of the vines, I noticed a green vine that is growing ever so strongly which made me pause to look.
When I looked closely, turns out it was a vine of a wild strawberry vine! This could not have been planted there by someone, and seeing several of them on the road to the path where we walk I discovered these so close to the main road. My guess is that some of the home owners gave up on the garden and forgot to see these, or seeing these wild strawberry vines some didn’t give up already so easily. Whenever I pass by the area of our hiking, I would see the strawberry vines grow strongly and fast, but there are others growing nearby in many places?
About three weeks ago, I was curious how to solve this vine issue and decided to take my pruning scissors along with me to walk. I decided to clean up some of the wild vines of my neighbors clearing up the bushes. With the shears I had chopped up every bit of the vines that were growing uncontrollably. It felt good to see them clearing.
But when I took a looked at the exact location again 2 weeks or so ago, I noticed there was another vine that was growing and patching the place. I witnessed how strong life forms can be. There were brand new saplings growing wildly even more from the vines that were cut. So I decided to give that a trim as well. My wife thought it was very strange of me to do something like this. In order to stop the entire thing from growing, I would have to take a shovel and uproot form the base of the vine but I cannot do that.
It is true what and how someone’s garden matter with me? But I think it is from my personality that such a viciously looking wild berry vines to be growing on a beautifully built home. I have once tried to uproot all the dandelions that were growing too much in the apartment complex’s grass.
Maybe this was the instinct from the sermon about the farmer spreading seeds and some landing in the wild vines?
This week on another early morning, I would have to take the gardening shears to trim those wild strawberry vines again…
(July 19 2016)
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The Strange Acorn Tree 
Thorny Wild Strawberry Bush