Being Strong

Every year, Ryan and I head to the store to buy flowers for all the little flower pots around our yard. Last year, I posted a photo of these on Facebook with a caption that said, "I had to promise to water them and not kill them."

And let the record show...I did not kill them. {And I did water them.}

When fall rolled around, we dug out the summer flowers from the big pots by the garage, and replaced them with mums. But in these little battered terra cotta pots in the backyard, we did nothing. We left them sitting in the landscaping with the purple and white flowers...which eventually wilted away with fall frosts.

And the snows fell {you do remember Indiana in the winter, right?} and one day, I looked out the window and said to Ryan, "Hey look at those flower pots! The stems still have green on them!"

Sure enough, peeking out from the mound of snow settling over them, were sprigs of bright green.

This spring, when the snow melted and the weeds began to sprout up awkwardly, those little pots still clung to green stems.

And the day came when we made our shopping list for flowers again, and I counted the white planters by the garage...the planters for the porch, and the three little bedraggled looking terra cotta pots in the yard.

Except...

I have no idea what these little guys are...and if they're perennials, then they are in our yard quite by accident, because we shop in the annuals section. And if they're annuals, then they are impressively hearty. They survived not only my non-green thumb, but also the heavy frosts and heavier snows that tried to suffocate them in the fall and winter months.

We decided just to let them go. Perhaps they're not as full and rich as last year, but they are a darling lesson in stubbornness and strength pushing through in our backyard.