Have you ever visualized something? Have you formed a picture in your mind and, as Abraham-Hicks says, “launched a rocket of desire” for something your heart yearned for? It doesn’t have to be a big rocket – little dreams feed the soul as well, and since visualizing plays largely into where I’m headed these days, I’ll share the results of one of the projects I brought from my head into reality.
Last spring, Peach and Dragon got sunflower seeds in their Easter baskets. I was totally pumped, because I had wanted to grow a crop of sunflowers with them ever since the medians along I-71 had begun displaying massive beds of them the last few summers. And the kids’ seeds were the ginormous kind, the ones that get 10’ tall – I was probably more excited than they were!
So out I went, to get them some of those little peat gardens with the greenhouse lid, that you sow while it’s still cold outside. But then life got in the way, and we put off planting longer than we should have. It was probably late May before we got them into the dirt. Luckily, the kids have green thumbs, and those little suckers were poking up their heads in no time. We were jumping up and down the day they all broke the surface. It wasn’t long before the sunflower sprouts started pushing against the lids of the kids’ gardens, so we moved them outside, onto the patio. They grew happily out there for a couple of weeks, reaching leggy heights of a foot or so, and we started scoping out spots in the yard to plant them.
Then disaster struck – we came home one day to find them strewn all over the patio, uprooted, with half of them gnawed off midway through the stalk. Dragon and Peach were so upset… they love animals, but they were ready to go Chef Ramsey on the local deer (or perhaps squirrels; we never figured out which species were the culprits.) All that hard work and tending, and their crop was suddenly reduced by half.
The kids salvaged what they could and we chose three different places in our yard to plant them. The sunniest spot, where we’d hoped to sow them all, proved quite challenging – it was a blanket of euonymus along the creek bed, and it was nearly impossible to get the spade in among all the vines. So we stuck a few there and planted a handful more on the edge of a different bed of ground cover. The last 18 or so went onto the hillside behind our house. It’s not as sunny there, only getting about 6 hours of sun a day, but it was the best we could manage without planting them at the curb. Since we spent the summer trying to outsmart the deer, who decimated all but the back patch, necessitating a four foot fence around the bed, I’m glad they didn’t end up in the front yard.
In the end, we finished up with about 10-12 flowers that matured enough to bloom. We lost our best and brightest at 4’ high, just as they were about to open, clipped off the stem by a hungry deer who was rude enough to eat the flower heads but ignore the leaves that surrounded them. I spent a small fortune on deer repellent after that, leading Guitar Man to question my financial savvy. He noted that I spent $50 to save about $3 worth of remaining flowers. I held my ground, stating that it was not about money at that point, but about seeing our vision through to the end, and I was making damned sure those last few flowers fulfilled their destinies, even though the ‘giants’ only reached a maximum height of about 4.5’. And fulfill them, they did! We cheered each time a new bloom opened, and the day a goldfinch landed to feed on the seeds of the first drooping flower head, I thought, yes, that’s what it’s all about! And they sure made doing the dishes a happier chore, as I could see them from the kitchen sink. Not as tall or as grand as we’d hoped for, but beautiful nonetheless, as you can see for yourself.
I’d love to hear about a goal you set and put into motion… a little (or big) dream you saw to fruition through vision and perseverance. Please share your stories!
