Springtime and Slugs

I'm at McDonald's this morning. I just finished my Sausage McMuffin with egg, no cheese, and orange juice. I have checked face book as well as my email. Now I am ready to start writing.  Hopefully I will get this blog written before I have to leave for Bible study. That is iffy though since, as usual, I don't know what I will write. Besides, it takes me forever to get the wording just the way I want it.

The sun is shining again today, that makes seven consecutive days. That is nice.  It lifts my spirits, but keeps me in the house. I have a skin sensitivity to  sunshine that causes me to break out in a rash when exposed more than an hour. It takes weeks for the redness and itching to go away. I guess that explains my love of the Pacific Northwest's clouds and rain.

Springtime is a good topic for discussion on this sunny day. Many of the early flowers have now withered away. I am always sad to see the daffodils go, but their splash of color has been replaced by dandelions bursting forth in all their yellow glory. Some of my rhodies are beginning to bloom. Others are still forming buds. My lilacs haven't done much yet. There has got to be bud-forming activity someplace in their bushiness. The lawn is growing higher every day, and is now littered with all sorts of petals that have fallen from the magnolia, plum, and ornamental cherry trees.

And the birds! Bold crows are bullying the smaller birds as they all search for nesting materials. The robins bob for worms. The hummingbirds daintily sip nectar, Overhead, the eagles and hawks gracefully soar as they prepare for another season of birdlet rearing. Tying all this activity together is the chorus of chirps, tweets, and caws. In the midst of the avian music is the chirr of a squirrel from the top of a fir.

Spring with its delicate beauty and new growth has definitely arrived. So has its enemies. The slugs are beginning to emerge from their winter hideouts,sliming their way around my front steps and sneaking up my planter boxes in the wee hours of the day, but that is the way the enemy is, sneaky. It seem when all is quiet and seemingly dormant the destroyer sleeps. At the first sign of new life he silently, sneakily attacks. At least that is how it looks.

In my faith walk, that is also how it feels. After going through an extremely cold spiritual-winter, it was wonderful to finally experiencing the beauty of a spiritual-springtime. I felt  new warmth in my heart and new life arising.  The enemy began rising up, too. He wants nothing more than to strip away, blemish, or destroy the new work God has begun. Thankfully, my Master Gardener supplies the slug bait--the power of his word, and the answered prayers.

Fighting slugs with the best defense ever,,

Jan