Sorry honey, I'm...

Window open, Spring rain, trees making love.

Most plants don't go very far after the initial move from mom's place, though that can be a good distance. Oak and hickory babies go about as far as the squirrel carries them and that only works if something happens to the squirrel before it gets hungry and comes looking for lunch. In a natural world, which doesn't exist much anymore, walnuts live near water where the nut cases can be washed downstream. This explains how walnut trees cover the miles one way but not the other. I'm pretty sure walking was not involved.

Plants do move. Having sprung a few venus flytraps over the years, I have watched the fast version of plant movement. I like the little okra-looking seed pods on that little oxalys or clover leaf looking plant in the lawn that will spit seeds everywhere like a tiny artillery barrage when you touch it. I have crawled on my hands and knees bumping them and watching them blast open, firing babies everywhere, and yes, I do amuse easily. You people with immacualte lawns will not know what I am talking about...too bad.

But mostly plants just grow and sit, taking what the world dishes out. those that make it through the seasons have their reward...they bloom. When I look at a flower of any sort, and they are not necessarily all beautiful to behold, I tend to honor it. A blossom is a plant making love.

I've let you folks in on the meaning of life before but I'll state it again just so you'll follow me this morning:

Eat...Survive...Reproduce...

and not necessarily in that order. It is a triangular arrangement...each piece of life's mandate is connected to the others and becomes paramount in its moment. Say what you will, though, the reproductive act which I prefer to call making love (not having sex, but yeah, I know..) anyway the reproductive act becomes not the main thing, but the only thing. We've all been there, I think...given up supper, skipped lunch, done stupid things that coulda gotten us wacked or an equivalent, all for the privilege and honor of making love.

With plants it's different. They sit there, waiting until it's time, and then they go at it in a big way. For a plant, making flower is a huge expenditure of resources. The ones that are going off right now have been waiting for months through the worst weather, trying to survive the ice storms and cold, just hoping to last until this moment, carefully crafting the ornate precursors to plant love and wrapping them protected inside their unassuming buds.

Looking at the thousands of blossoms on a maple tree, discreet as they are beautiful, I marvel at the energy it must take to make love with every bud on thousands of branches and twigs.



Sure this living entity ( Is a tree a being?) only gets to make whoopee once a year, but dang what an experience it must be having. It may be once a year but it is also thousands of times at once and that once lasts for days! I can only imagine such a thing and wipe my sweaty palms.

So, children, this is why trees don't walk around. After making flower ten thousand times at once...they are just too tired.

Peace,

Steve