Extruding Ice

 

We hiked on a wet hillside on a 33 degree day, and ice crunched underfoot. The water had frozen into ribbons of ice called extrusions. Water, which would normally be in the ground, expanded as it froze and "grew" or extruded out of the ground. Continued water seepage underground forces the extrusions up above the soil and leaf litter.

It looks like i'm hiking on crystals. It sounds very crunchy.

An oft-repeated behavior--gesture or word or thought--crystalizes into a habit. The habit hardens into our character and becomes our personality. That's who we think we are. By the time we're old, our personality can be downright crunchy. Perhaps you know someone like this.

Let the water flow through your life. Let Life flow through your life.

Ground Cherry Surprise

While cleaning out a flower bed, i found a surprise. Ground cherries!

Ground cherries are a husk tomato, similar to a tomatillo, but much smaller, sweet, and yellow-orange when ripe.

I planted them one year, but found that my growing season wasn't really long enough. Plus they're small and, therefore, labor-intensive to harvest. Even though that was years ago, these ground cherries keep showing up in unexpected places. I suppose they go into my compost and, from there, into various vegetable or flower beds.

We need to be careful about what mental seeds we sow in our minds and what action seeds we sow in our behavior. "Just this once" lays down the track for a habit, which becomes easier and easier to follow.

Let's sow sweet and delicious seeds of kindness and patience.