We are blessed with an unusually warm November this year.  Or is it the new usual? I have been able to put off the last gardening tasks until today.  With a hard frost predicted for Saturday evening, it seemed on this day of sunshine the right time to finish up in the garden.  Earlier this week the winds drove the leaves in the back yard into convenient piles.  I may not even need to rake them, or I should say, Becky may not need to rake them up, but leave them where they are.  Between my wife and my cardiologist, Linda, raking leaves is verboten.

Today I whacked down the elephant ears and dug up one of the roots.  (See previous sentence.)  I also picked a bunch of green tomatoes and spread them out on some newspaper on the garage floor.  Then I tackled the job of cutting up the vines for the trash man to take Monday for composting.  Every year I vow that my tomato vines will not get out of control and every year my vow goes unfulfilled.  I would not be surprised to find Tarzan swinging through the vines.

With those tasks completed I noticed something surprising. A rose bush had a couple of red blossoms.  I also brought my Christmas cactus in last week, and now they can’t even wait until advent to bloom.

I am leaving the garden until next spring.  But next spring, God willing, I will once again take up the task of trying to recreate a bit of Eden in our yard.  I will do so knowing that several varieties of weeds will remind me, that try as I might to restore Eden, I will need to wait until God brings me to that life where the water of life bright as crystal flows from the throne of God watering the tree of life with its ever bearing fruit of the month.  That fruit will counteract the effects of the fruit in God’s original Eden, for in the second Eden the leaves will be for the healing of the nations.  We shall worship God and the Lamb and see his face and bear his name.