Roses are ...

...covered with pests!

After our abridged walk this morning – Dusty just didn’t have any enthusiasm to go further than the head of the lane to the ‘fort’ – we took a tour of the garden, checking on the progress of various plants. The peony which I transplanted last fall has a bud on it, which is exciting as they are notoriously difficult to transplant. 

I moved from the potential triumph of that to check on the roses, which I fed the other day. And discovered to my dismay that one or two of the bushes are thick with green/white fly. The stems leading up to the buds look like the 405 freeway at rush hour: highly congested and nothing moving. Nose to tail bugs. Literally. 

Where did they come from? The promise of the burgeoning bud under threat from this assault of shifty predators. Sucking the goodness out of what might be a beautiful and fragrant rose.

I sprayed with the general bug killer as I don’t seem to have any insecticide particularly for roses, and I will keep a close watch.

I’ve got a plan for my day. It’s a writing day, and I’ve set it aside for work on an article and some Bible reading notes. But like the wee pests crawling towards the rose, there are lots of ‘pests’ creeping into my plans. Things which I need to do, and probably need to do today. 

I don’t have any spray to shift these distracters from my mind. But I do have my Bible, and the knowledge that when I focus on God, he can chase away those things which may suck away and spoil the beauty of what might otherwise have been. 

So, although in itself it almost seems like yet another distraction from writing to retreat to the prayer alcove for some meditative time, I know that it is the opposite. Time with God is never wasted. It fuels my spirit and feeds my soul. 

I’m off.