Saving the World

I love daisies. I love that they grow wild and free. I love that they serve no other purpose but to be beautiful and bring a little joy to our lives. One of my favorite movie lines is in "You've Got Mail" when Meg Ryan explains her love of daisies and how they are "so friendly". I agree completely, they are the friendlies flower.

This time of year, red clover and daisies are prolific along the highways here in southwest Arkansas. It actually makes that long 30-mile-trip to Wal-Mart a complete joy.

Today, I had to make a trip into town to enter some of my photography in the annual art show.

I was met with a most unpleasant sight. A sign that read "mowers ahead".

WHAT? They never mow this early! The daisies are just getting going! Aren't they supposed to wait till all the wildflowers go to seed?

I could feel my heart start racing as I approached the beginnings of the massacre. A huge swath of clover and daisies were cut down to nothing. I almost had to pull over. Then I saw the wretched beast that was devouring the helpless flowers. I called my mom, I called Rodney..."what should I do? what should I do?"

Rodney suggested that I march up to the court house, find the county judge and give him what for. Mom simply reiterated that they are NOT supposed to mow until the flowers go to seed.

I almost pulled over when I saw what looked to be the contractors truck. There were several men outside the truck holding WEED-EATERS and smirking cynical little grins. Knowing myself like I do, I knew that a confrontation with a weedeater-wielding, trucker-hat-wearing, daisy-mowing barbarian would, more than likely, bring me to a tearful fit and I would end up on the evening news.

The sad thing was that it was really too late to do anything about it. They were all but gone. Only the steep hillsides remained adorned. I was still in complete shock but had errands to run, so I focused on that. As I turned onto the road that lead to the art show building, there was a glimmer of hope. The ditches that lined the highway just before the turn hadn't yet been cut.

So I did what any logical person would do, I pulled over, jumped out of my car and yanked up as many daisies as I could. They were coming up by the roots fairly easily, almost as if they were screaming "save us, save us, the tractor is coming!" I made several little stops along the roadway, rescuing as many as I could. I'm not even sure if this is legal but I felt like those people that risk life and limb in order to save some endangered species.

By the time I got home with them, they were pretty wilted. I bounded from the car with all the urgency of an EMT and began digging furiously in the ground near my picket fence. I had been out there yesterday with my pick-axe preparing the soil for seeds, so the tools were there, I just had to do the work.

They look so pitiful, even turning from the camera as to not have their picture taken. Poor little things, the trauma they've been through.

I watered them in well and asked God to let them live.

The ones that were separated from their roots, I simply cut and put in a vase. My house already feels so much happier.

I am still thinking of at least calling to find out why in the world they were mowing so early. There were crazy thoughts of laying down in the flowers in front of the mowers. But I really really didn't want to be on the news.

I did my best and saved as many as I could. And, hopefully, I will enjoy year after year of springs filled with daisies adorning my picket fence.

Oh, please let them live.