I spent the early hours of the day in the garden, before the heat became unbearable. I ended up soaked in sweat anyway, but it’s the first time I’ve had a chance to do some gardening.
Sadly, my cauliflower and broccoli are no more, thanks to one of the most destructive creatures on earth: tiny baby bunnies. They ate all the leaves and that was that. (And yes, I have the vegetable garden fenced, but baby bunnies are insidious.)
The cucumbers, though, are just fine.
The wall of morning glories I planted for the hummingbirds did not materialize. However, there are plenty of other flowers. Between those and the feeder, the hummingbirds don’t seem to mind the lack of morning glories.
My phlox is blooming despite the fact that deer came through and chomped the tops off a few weeks ago.
My hydrangeas are blooming—I just leave them alone. So far, so good.
It’s pollinator central in the yard—all kinds of bees and other pollinators, and more butterflies this year than I’ve seen in a long time. Despite everything being kind of a mess, I feel like I must be doing something right.
So, my less-than-pristine garden continues to grow. I think there’s a (somewhat obvious) metaphor for writing in all this. It’s messy, unpredictable, doesn’t always turn out the way you expect it to, but it’s always worth it.
Writing Wrongs 
Perfect metaphor! And, it sounds to me like your garden is doing perfectly well… even if it isn’t exactly what you expected.
FWIW, I came across these lines in a Seth Godin post recently, and they seemed awfully relevant to my life these days. Maybe to yours, too?
“It’s easy to imagine that we should do our work and then, when it doesn’t work as we hope, improvise to fix it.
But perhaps our work is to show up ready and willing to deal with [my thoughts: “and appreciate”] a future we didn’t expect.”