Summer is my least favorite time of the year, particularly at this time when there are several triple digit days in the forecast coming up, but the one thing I do love about the summer are the summer mornings and evenings when the canyon breeze kicks in to cool everything down. I feel a great sense of nostalgia when I look out the window and see the shadows of the trees blowing, because as a child that was the first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning. My dad was an early bird (I suppose that's where I get it from), and always made sure we got up early in the morning to do our garden and yard work before the heat set in later in the morning. As I think back on this, there is one specific project that I remember well.
The backyard appeared to be neglected that year. It was full of weeds, some only covering the ground and others that grew nearly as tall as we were. There wasn't a spot left untouched. The plan was to clear it all out so that we could put sod down. I was only a child and so the yard still looked enormous to me. When I examined the amount of weeds we had to clear out, I felt overwhelmed. I saw it as an impossible task that would never get done, believing that the weeds would take over the area again before we finished. I doubted it could be done.
As the project began and we started working on different sections each day, I was pleasantly surprised. We had that yard weeded in a week, before other weeds had the chance to grow in and take over. I have always hated weeding, because I sometimes got some really painful and burning reactions on my skin, but as I surveyed it all I felt a great satisfaction to see how much better the yard looked through our turmoil.
I think back at this experience and how impossible it seemed at the beginning. I wonder how many times we look at situations in life and think they were impossible. How many of them were in reality possible? Yes, it takes time and effort, but in the end are satisfying results. There are a lot of things out there that are only limited because we have set that in our minds.
The vision is there and the hope is there. We only need to seek.
A mountain view from a hike last fall.
