The bushes in my yard have been around for a decade and mostly I don't know what they are. This year, a several of them bloomed all at once, some for the very first time. These were mature bushes ten years ago so they are only older now. It was a welcome and surprise turn of events in a time where happy news has been hard to come by. Wild violets have taken over the grass everywhere. For reasons only nature knows, many flowers have chosen to bloom all at once this year. Maybe to serve as reminder that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Trying to learn about these flowers all around me led to this site about the mythology of flowers.
I have been spending time pulling weeds so the flowers might thrive and not get crowded in - doing my part to help this sudden and unexpected abundance. The profusion and variety of weeds amazes me when I pull out one that I have not encountered before. To my untrained eye, there seems to be an infinite variety in my own yard. They make me recall scenes from my childhood where some elderly person would show us kids a random weed and tell us why its useful - either as something edible or a herbal remedy. My paternal grandmother was more knowledgeable than most others and likely to find use of things they might overlook.
As I labor over the weeds, I find some have such pretty leaves that its a shame to pull them out - almost disrespecting nature's labor to make this tiny thing of perfection like Rachel Carson said "Some of nature’s most exquisite handiwork is on a miniature scale, as anyone knows who has applied a magnifying glass to a snowflake"
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