FORECAST OF WOE (tm)

Our garden is looking quite the worse for wear because of our vacation.

We looked at the forecast before we left. Weatherman said: Tuesday - thunderstorms, Wednesday - thunderstorms, Thursday - thunderstorms. Ok, we don't have to worry about having someone else water the garden, then. Right?

WAY wrong.

Apparently, that's why they call it weather prediction and not weather certainty. Not one drop of rain fell in our hometown the entire time we were gone. Ten days of scorching heat and no water. Ugh.

Needless to say, we returned to a sad little garden. We lost three bean plants, one of our two cucumber plants (and the other one ain't lookin' so hot) and we might lose the big zucchini plant. That amounts to about 1/4 of our plants!

Ok, so picture this. Dan goes out to look at the garden every day when he gets home from work. I stay in the house and wait for him to return with his patented "FORECAST OF WOE" (tm). Honestly, when it comes to this garden, he is SUCH a "glass half empty" man. "We're going to lose those bean plants." "Those tomatoes aren't going to make it." If the plants he said were doomed to die actually did, we wouldn't have anything in the garden except ants!

Yesterday he came home from work, and I said, "Ok, better go outside and get your FORECAST OF WOE (tm) over with." He was out there so long that I finally went out to see what was going on. He was just standing in the garden with a gloomy look on his face. (Harbinger of said FORECAST OF WOE.)

I sat down on the steps and he came over to join me. We talked about the poor garden. We talked about our crummy soil. We talked about our friend Phil, who is apparently putting up so many veggies that he can't keep up with it all. We talked about the FOW.

And while we were sitting there, God sent us a sign.

A dust devil formed. RIGHT OVER OUR GARDEN! And suddenly, there we were, sitting on our steps, watching our bean plants get SUCKED RIGHT OUT OF THE GROUND!!!!!

It has to rate right up there in the top ten craziest things I have ever seen in.my.life.

I mean, it was a lovely day, the sun was shining, we sat there on the steps bemoaning our bad garden mojo, when some of the dead leaves started to swirl around.
More leaves joined them.
The leaves flew up in a spiral and went about 20 feet in the air.
The bean plants started to sway.
The bean plants started whipping around in circles.
Three of them actually rose up and pulled their roots out of the dirt.
And then, as quickly as it started, it stopped.





Dan and I just sat there in disbelief. Turned to each other. "Did you see that?" Went to inspect the damage.

We had to replant three plants and tried to prop up some of the others which were bent at strange angles. The FOW for the beans isn't good. Of course.

But I tell ya, if we hadn't both seen it with our own eyes, we never would have believed it. Dan would have gone out to the garden, found the bean plants uprooted, and would have had an absolute FIT.

Was this God's way of telling us something? A great big cosmic Smack-upside-the-head? "Hey, guys, give it up already!" I don't know.

I only know that the FOW will continue, but maybe it will be tempered with a little humor.

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