Meg Evans

Birds and small animals occasionally drink from the little fountain on my front porch (shown here). Today I saw a chipmunk and was going to take a photo, but the chipmunk was scurrying away under a bush by the time I got back there with my phone. I noticed that the bush needed mulch and that a few small weeds were coming up around it.

Of course, there’s always something in the yard that has weeds or is otherwise in need of maintenance—we expect that. Then I started wondering, why do we expect so much more from ourselves than from our gardens? We wouldn’t complain that a garden was a bad garden for having a few weeds, but we criticize ourselves for all kinds of small imperfections. We might do better simply to accept the fact that, just like the yard, we’re always going to have a weed here or there!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Because there are so many consumer goods and advertisements for them in today’s world, people often feel poor as a result of not being able to buy everything at once. Even though many of us actually have lots more stuff than in the past, it doesn’t always feel that way. So, when those ads make us feel like we don’t have enough, it’s best to keep in mind that the most important things in life have nothing to do with money.

Having an expensive house and buying all the latest cars and gadgets may be fun, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that a person is rich in what really matters.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

I mentioned in a Nurturing Thursday post last year that three of my rosebushes had died of a virus. Now I have replacement bushes that are doing nicely. They’re still tiny and not yet in bloom; but they do have buds and look like they’re thriving.

At the end of the season I’ll cut back the older bushes enough so that everything will be the same size. By next year the rose garden should be back to looking like it always did. Even though losing some of the bushes seemed awful at the time, it really wasn’t all that hard to repair. That’s true of many things, and it’s a good lesson to keep in mind!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Today’s post is by request of my faithful commenter Carolyn, who asked for photos of the wildlife that I see when rowing. Truth be told, I haven’t taken many photos, chiefly because I am afraid of dropping my phone in the river, so I generally don’t bring it in the boat. I saw an interesting duck parenting scene last weekend, though. Mama Duck and her babies looked a lot like this image I found online:

Most of the little ones were behaving themselves and staying close to Mama, but one kept wandering off. The river was so big and exciting, he just had to explore. Although Mama kept chasing after him and quacking, she couldn’t get him to stay with the other ducklings.

After a while Daddy Duck had enough of that, and the next time the youngster got too far away, Daddy went and bit him! The little guy tried to hide behind a rock, but it looked to me like he got pecked pretty thoroughly anyway. And that goes to show—it’s best to listen to Mama, even if you are a duck.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Although the modern world is full of amazing opportunities that the people of past generations never could have imagined, it also can be more stressful precisely because we have so many choices. We procrastinate because we feel overwhelmed by all the things we ought to do. Instead of acting on opportunities when they arise, we fill our minds with imaginary scenarios of everything that could go wrong.

This afternoon I got something taken care of that I’d been putting off for a while. I thought it would be hard to do; but when I actually got around to doing it, I found that it wasn’t nearly as difficult or time-consuming as I had imagined.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

The willows in my backyard (shown in this post last summer) have been somewhat neglected the past few years, I have to confess. Some small branches died in the frigid winter of 2014, and I never got around to pruning them off. My husband carefully maneuvered the push mower around them for the past two summers without complaining, and finally he said, “Hey, Meg, can you prune these willows, there’s always dead stuff poking me when I walk around them.”

So I’ve been going outside to work on them every weekend when he’s mowing, and it makes quite a difference! The ones that have been pruned so far are looking much better. Instead of having small dead branches sticking out all around, they look neat and tidy.

Walking around them feels much better, too. There’s an inviting sense of openness that wasn’t there before. The air seems to circulate more freely, even if it hasn’t really changed that much, and it feels more comfortable in general. Sometimes pruning away old dead stuff can make a big difference—both in the yard and in life generally!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Often when people are too busy, it’s because they’ve gotten the idea that if they don’t do everything, then it won’t get done. Of course, that is not really true. It’s not all on us. Lots of things happen whether we’re involved or not. Most of us are nowhere near indispensable in our jobs and other obligations, however much we might like to think we are; and Mother Nature does as she pleases.

I planted snapdragons in my garden next to some that had survived the winter, as I mentioned in a post a month ago. Here’s a photo showing two large plants on either side (the survivors, now blooming) with the freshly planted ones in between and smaller plants from last year’s seeds popping up all around.

If I hadn’t gotten impatient for a bit of color in early May, I could easily have waited, and the garden would have filled in with snapdragons naturally. I see it as a good reminder that even though we always have things we want to do, the world is not going to fall apart if we don’t happen to get them done!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Even though it’s silly to try to be like celebrities, most of us would have to admit we’ve done it at one time or another. When I was a student, I decided that I wanted hair that looked like Princess Di. The stylist gave me a lecture about how my long hair looked pretty as it was, complained about young people who don’t appreciate the beauty of just being themselves, and reluctantly trimmed it a little after telling me that Princess Di had started wearing her hair longer.

I was young enough that I didn’t appreciate the advice, either; but it did start to make more sense as time went by. If we can’t be comfortable as ourselves, then we’re probably not going to have much success trying to be someone else, either!
 

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Our society has gotten so competitive that people stress themselves out all the time worrying that other people might be doing better than they are. And whether we’re talking about work, school, sports, or anything else, there’s usually another person who is doing something better. After all, the world is a very big place and it’s not reasonable to expect perfection in everything we do.

It’s much healthier to take a step back from the competitive frenzy and remind ourselves that it’s not really about who wins or loses on a particular day—rather, making simple little changes for the better in everyday life will add up to much more as time passes.
 

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

With so much going on in today’s busy world, it’s all too easy to get a bad attitude when something doesn’t go as expected. I have to confess that I let myself get annoyed recently when I wanted to make an appointment and was waiting for a call back, but did not get a prompt response. I started to feel like maybe I was being ignored on purpose. They did eventually call, and of course the most likely explanation is that they were just disorganized and it was nothing personal at all.
 

Sometimes those little annoyances are best taken as nothing more than life’s helpful reminders that an attitude adjustment might be called for!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.