Tumbleweed Crossing!

On my way to work yesterday, there was a gust of wind making its way through our town and rustling up a bunch of tumbleweeds in the process. Though I tried to avoid them, there were some casualties. It reminded me of Vegas, actually, as we had tumbleweeds blow down the street every year.

I know where they come from and why there are so many of them. The ground is fertile enough for them to grow and we have a lot of uncultivated land around. They pop up everywhere. In fact, we have a strip of dirt along the back fence in our backyard (which will be transformed into a garden sometime soon) and a few have popped up there too before being freed by the wind and eventually making their way to a corner of the yard. We have no trouble growing something where we are. Every year, the fields around our neighborhood are populated with weeds, shrubs and other vegetation.

In thinking about it, I remembered a conversation I had with a former boss. She was part I.T. director and part farmer/rancher. (Go figure!) She told me that when farming, just as soon as they'd clear some land, something else would grow in it's place if they didn't grow something else themselves. In fact much of the earth is that way. When the existing plant growth is cleared away, the earth will attempt to cover itself up again. She pointed out that it resembled the principle of modesty. To think that even Mother Earth demonstrated modesty was really interesting. It has stuck with me ever since.