I love to water my lawn. I love the quiet time spent pouring water into the grass, spending extra time on the brown bits to help them recover. Every day as I water, I see growth, I see the green become greener, I see the brown bits turning green, and I see new grass sprouting from barren spots.
Sometimes my lawn is so beautiful! I love it! I take such pleasure in keeping it healthy and happy! Then - out of the blue, a family of gophers will move in and just tear it up! It is so frustrating to have worked so hard, and have some random gopher just undo it all! Well, it happened and now I have to deal with it.
I have learned that gophers do not like coffee grounds, which is brilliant for me, because I LOVE coffee and have LOTS of coffee grounds. So, every time I see a fresh mound of dirt, I go outside and sprinkle coffee grounds over it, and cram some into the hole. I'm not a fan of extermination, so if I can gently encourage them to move on, that's my goal. Low and behold, they usually pack up their troop and move on. (sorry neighbors!)
I have removed the gophers from my lawn, but I am still left with the damage they caused. I must evaluate, see how I can repair the damage and get started. The damage does not go away over night, it takes time, patience and lots of attention.
It occurred to me, that I am similar to my lawn. First, I can't just "water" me once a week, or a month. I need to be watered daily. I need to be nourished daily. Second, there are some parts of me that might need extra attention, that have become a little brown. So, some days (or more) I will need to put extra time and nourishment into those parts. There are also some bits that have just crusted and died, and are barren. That's ok! I just need to remove the dry parts, plant some fresh seeds and start watering. Third, I need to step back every day and admire how hard I work and how awesome it is to see growth, from the smallest blade of grass, to the giant patch of green that is just radiating!
And of course sometimes, even with all of your hard work, life will bring a family of gophers your way. You work tirelessly to kick them to the curb and even as you are successful in removing them, they wreaked havoc and left a path of destruction in their wake. Sometimes that just happens in life. Sometimes, despite all the positive things we're doing, life still throws curveballs. Take the pandemic for instance. For. The. Love. Who of us expected or prepared for that? We seem to be nearing the end of it, but boy did it leave a path of destruction. For some it resulted in financial instability, loss of relationships, loss of jobs, and at its worst, even loss of life.
So now we begin the process of repair. We have to walk outside, look at our lawn, water what's left of the green bits, spend some extra time on the brown bits, and just completely rebuild our barren parts. That takes a tremendous amount of work - but we have a great supply of water to get started. And if you need some more water, ask to borrow some from me. I'd love to help you. And I may need borrow some of your water as well.