Paying attention

A common mistake in life, in my life anyway is relying too heavily on Newton’s first law of motion. An object in motion stays in motion, unless an external force is applied to it. That external force can be a real bitch.  

I left my garden for a week and things just kept on growing, as expected. However, I did not take into (enough) consideration the proximity problem. Which is to say, my pumpkins and cucumbers started crawling in with my tomatoes, my tomatoes were all over each other and the pole beans were actually jumping poles and climbing up their neighbors’. All of this intermingling then caused other plants to start getting choked out, like the marigolds and basil growing beneath the tomatoes as well as some of the pole beans who didn’t take too kindly to having their turf compromised.  

I just expected everything to stay on track and grow and blossom. I thought I had done enough tending that I didn't need to worry about it much.  I didn’t spend enough time thinking about how easy it can be for life to run astray. How external forces might trip up what was otherwise a nicely flowing forward momentum of growth.

In order for life to follow along the right path it is not enough to set things in motion and leave it to do the right thing on it’s own without further intervention. Attention and care is necessary to keep things moving in the right direction. Not to mention culling trouble makers who can’t seem to respect spatial boundaries. 

On the upside, there is still harvest. I’ve pulled more potatoes and snow peas, as well as green beans, purple beans, purple striped beans and garlic from my garden. My yields haven’t been as good as they could have been and some of the plants have died because of lack of care but everything else is hanging in there. All is not lost by any means; just a lot of disappointment to contend with because I had such high hopes that things were going along so well. It's hard to learn that things aren't as perfect as you thought they were.

Life lesson learned: If you want things to stay on course, you have to keep an eye on them. So if external variables knock them off track, you can make corrections before everything really gets away from you.