We Get Our Thrills Where We Can

The first grade class is growing grass (REAL grass, as in Kentucky Blue…get your mind out of the 70’s).  We planted grass in cups, then made hypotheses about how many days it would take for it to sprout.  My most pessimistic student guessed 150 days.  We recorded our observations and, to the amazement and joy of my darlings, we saw green poking through after just 4 ½ days.  We have faithfully watered our fragile seedlings as needed and today, (drum roll, please), we gave them “hair cuts.”  The beauty of growing grass is, as long as the sun and water keep a’ comin,’ we’ll have grass forevermore!

After playing barber, we carefully scooped up the clippings, put them in a baggie, attached a note saying, “enjoy the smell of summer,” and ceremoniously carried them to the teacher’s work room.  I was AMAZED at the response from the teachers.  They thanked me warmly for providing a whiff of past memory and future warmth.  I had to smile as I pictured my colleagues shoving their noses into a baggie of green grass, the same stuff we get sick of mowing about the 1^st of July. 

Where did the magic lie in such a simple act? 

You need to understand our circumstances.  We live in NORTH DAKOTA.  Those of my more southerly friends have been moaning about “all the snow” and the “bitter cold.”  And I just smile smugly.  The “winter to remember” in places like Illinois and Texas will be gone in a few weeks and will fade into folklore eventually.  For we northern plains people, this is our reality every year.  We see the snows arrive in late fall, the bitter cold in January, and will not glimpse spring until April.  For goodness sake, we’ll still get snow in May!  I have pictures galore of May snow covering the ground.  Why I keep faithfully recording with pictures, I’m not sure.  I guess this Missouri girl is still stunned by shows of winter when it should be nearly summer.

So for us, by February, we are winter-weary and desperately seeking anything that hales of more balmy temps and colorful vistas.  Everywhere you look here, it is white, white, white.  Only the blue sky provides relief from the monotony of the colorless landscape.  And on most days for weeks on end, even the sky refuses to share its color.  The brilliant sun is kept hidden by selfish cloud cover.  I have read of homesteading women who were so desperate for color, they would capture birds with any color at all and keep them as pets.  The neutral hues of sod houses, and plowed fields left them bereft of visual stimulation.  I guess it’s a woman thing. 

My best explanation for the success of our Great Grass Experiment, is that it came at a time when we needed a simple reminder that spring will indeed come, summer will follow, and our winter is only temporary.  The cycle of seasons and the miracle of the Earth replenishing itself with budding trees and green ground cover will indeed reappear to us in the very near future.  And 6-year-olds will find wonder in the fact that something green and wonderful will grow from a tiny, dry seed.  I hope they never cease to be amazed by that.   I stand in awe of a God who created a self-sustaining Earth.  Must be the six-year-old in me.