God's Gifts

Posted by Paulette

I woke up to a beautiful soft rain today. Living in the Arizona desert makes one very thankful for every drop of rain we get. When I was living in new Mexico, I would call my grandmother when it started raining and tell her to get her dancing shoes on. This is how it is in the Southwest. We love rain. 
Lately I've been spending a lot of time in the back yard working. It all started with the ducks. I built them a pen on the side of the house using a palate, some wood and chicken wire for a door and some fencing stakes. It only took a couple of hours. When the ducks were delivered they made a b-line for a corner of the yard with the most overgrowth of sage, a tree I can't identify with wicked thorns, and a naval orange tree. I noticed some trash tucked in the underbrush and was soon hacking away to trim everything up so that an adult can walk under it. This led to me hacking away at 10 years of overgrowth in the yard, which made a few huge piles of branches. 
 I've rediscovered how gardening is a therapy. It's good for the body, forcing me to lift and pull, and push and use all of the muscles of my body. It's sweating like I've never sweat before and cleaning out all of those impurities of my body. It's quiet time spent with nature, and communing with Heavenly Father who made all of this glory for his children. It's satisfaction of making changes that will stay that way longer than making a meal or cleaning the house. 
 So the cleaning up has turned into more projects of digging a pond for the ducks, and making raised bed gardens for vegetables that we will be planting in the fall. Planning has turned into implementing,and learning.
 David and I attended a class Saturday and learned the science behind composting. We learned microbiology. We also gained some new friends. God is so good to enrich our lives.