The Natural Order of Things

I'm really enjoying a book called Noah's Garden Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Backyards...

Something in me has always revolted at the thought of a home yard that is too manicured (For example, I love dandelions...)... acres of 2 inch grass and wall to wall carpeting have about the same appeal to me... I do like area rugs and I do like small islands of grass.... something in me has long been desiring the marriage of cultivated plants and naturally wanton weeds... perhaps that desire is a reflection of my own romantic tendency... I think it can be safely said that when we met, my husband exhibited a more wild nature while I had trouble being anything but cultivated... the blend has been lovely for both of us. He now demurely smokes a tobacco pipe on his leather couch while I drink his wine made from wild grapes... I guess you could say that the wild oats he sowed were found to be quite usable by me for a hearty bread for life... we both rebel against society to a degree... the society that desires to imprison young children for much of their childhood in educational institutions... the society that has laws about the length of grass... the society that approves poisonous pesticides for human consumption but makes certain cottage food industries illegal or over-regulated... we don't tend toward breaking laws, generally, but we do prefer to live on the fringe...

Man was originally placed in a garden to tend it... what was meant by that is unknown to me, because the tending of gardens has become synonymous with weed pulling and there weren't weeds in Eden.... perhaps there aren't really weeds now... perhaps the problem has become that in Eden man was able to see God's perfect design and encourage it, but now we only see our own design and force it...