It's the little things

I spotted it as I headed out for a walk.
And I smiled with delight.

There, in the lawn between the sidewalk and our front yard, it stood, proudly swaying in the breeze.
And I felt a surge of pure joy.

My house sits on a small hill which made mowing difficult, so in the years since we moved in we've slowly been seeding the entire front hill with perennials - cone flowers, black-eyed Susans, day-lilies. It's kind of wild and overgrown most of the time, but I love its riotous disorder, the birds and butterflies it attracts, and reducing the need to mow.

But try as I might, my husband has refused to pull up the grass in that space and plant it to flowers instead.

So imagine my utter delight when I spied the small black-eyed-Susan bobbing merrily smack-dab in the middle of this space. I could hardly wait to tell him how happy it made me that not only had the flowers seeded themselves there, but that he hadn't mowed them down.

It almost makes up for the time several years ago when I discovered he had systematically killed all the volunteer morning glories sprouting throughout the yard.

Almost.

I'm not sure whether this signals a true change of heart on his part or a simple, single gesture of love. Time will tell.

But I'm hopeful the crazy profusion of flowers will slowly spread and eliminate the need for mowing entirely. Even if it only happens one-seed at a time.