Eat the Dandelions, but Don’t Kill the Clover!

Written by Troy

I plant clover, because I love it.  This spring I have the most beautiful crop of clover growing in my yard.  I love to mow the grass with my John Deere LA 145.  Cutting the grass is my favorite time to pray and just unwind as I mindlessly follow a circular pattern in my yard all the while making things look nicer.  But I’ll wait to cut the clover so the bees can enjoy the beautiful flowers on the clover first and then it goes to seed.  I’m the guy that lets the dandelions tassel into light fluffy perfectly round orbs of beautiful, lighter-than-air parachute seeds eventually spreading across my lawn. Why? Because my kids will go out and pick a dandelion leaf salad for dinner sometimes, and the clover feeds the bees of my neighbor’s hives.  I recently learned that honey bees need to tap about two million flowers and fly 50,000 miles to make one pound of honey.

To me, my yard is God’s free, organic, all-natural food growing – literally like a weed – in my yard! Now to my friend Philip, my yard is a weed patch of pestilence.  The kind of pestilence he diligently works all weekend to kill with pesticides, chemicals and pulling.  To be fair – his yard is lovely.  I enjoy pictures he sends me of his amazingly groomed fairway with perfect blades of Kentucky Blue Grass uninhibited by any unwanted invader.  His yard makes me realize that my expression “I’m mowing my grass” can’t apply to my patch of misfit weeds, clover, dandelions, and moss, occasionally graced with a sprig of unidentified grass.  I enjoy pictures of his grass but shudder to think of the battle I would have to fight to make my yard look that way.  I find it is easier to accept my yard the way it is and find the good in it.  It’s the yard we have – not perfect – but perfect for me.

God’s working in my life through my yard to help me shift my energy from trying to be something I’m not into leaning into what he made me to be.  I’ll never have that body builder shape or a steely, “Rambo”, macho personality that is a calm in the face of enemy fire. I’m a skinny guy who has to work out hard to look like I have a muscle, and if I tell you the story of how my wife and I played tag in the yard last weekend with my 7 year old twins, I’m likely to get a sentimental tear in my eye that I’ll pretend was a yawn.  But maybe that’s ok.  Maybe it’s time to let go of the enormous energy it takes to focus on what I’m not, to stop dreaming of being something else, to stop spending money on clothes that could make my muscles look buff, and to stop trying tonics to make my hair thicker.  I once believed these things could bring me closer to what I thought I wanted to be.  I’m learning there is good in who I am naturally.  I can spend my life trying to get rid of it or I can embrace it and look for the purpose in what God gave me.