I know we are instructed as Christians to give thanks in everything, but there are things that we can’t honestly give thanks for. I’ll start with one of those Bad events:
While my family was here, we had the unhappy discovery that the fairy house creations at the creek had been vandalized, and Ivy’s beautiful sign torn down. We could tell it wasn’t just city maintenance workers reducing the fire hazard or anything like that, because although the dry grass had been chopped down a lot, it wasn’t a thorough job. And there was graffiti on the far side of the creek, along with gnomes thrown into the stream and various items disappeared altogether. The fairy who had through many seasons hovered overhead by means of fishing line, was not to be seen.
My granddaughter found her sign and hung it up in a less conspicuous place. Probably the presence of the sign had drawn the attention of the vandals to the opportunity to destroy something. We were both very sad about this, and angry. But I don’t think Ivy has given up; I won’t be surprised if the next time she is visiting down here I find myself collaborating on a rehabilitation of the fairy village.
In the meantime, on her recent visit, Ivy came bearing my own garden gnome, meticulously painted so that he is better than new.
Starting with the refurbished gnome, I have only Good things to report.
Near a different creek that runs through my neighborhood, is a lovely city park that is Ever Green with soccer fields and Coast Redwood trees. Pathfinder and I went there with his nephews on the way back from the grieved fairy house village, and the three of them threw a football to each other for a while. I walked around taking pictures of them and of the trees that have only grown more majestic over the 36 years since we first visited them a block from our house. What a blessing they are.
On my own property, my only dahlia has bloomed for the first time. After I had forgotten planting it and before I noticed it happening it was fully open, and startled me.
Decades ago I had quite a few dahlias, but there wasn’t really room for them, so I gave them away. For a recent birthday a friend gave me a dahlia tuber, which I’d first planted in a pot, where it barely survived. So I planted it in the front garden, where it is a Good.
And the final great Good for today is Queen Anne’s Lace, growing quite mysteriously and so welcome at the corner of my own driveway. Over the years several other species have volunteered themselves among the oenethera there, mostly arriving from the garden on the other side of the driveway. This is the first wildflower that has traveled all the way from the creek path. I can hardly believe my good fortune at the bestowal of this beloved plant. May it ever increase!
Gladsome Lights 
that’s interesting – I wrote about a similar experience we had with a special gnome village here in Tallahassee last year.
https://glean-daily.com/2025/08/11/no-home-for-gnomes/
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Thank you so much for the link to your similar story. The destruction of such an innocent and childlike, homey project causes an indescribable pain.
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How very unfortunate it is that some young people ( and it’s most likely that age group) are so bent on doing evil. And I do regard such wanton destruction as evil. Nice to know you were able to touch up the paint on the gnome.
Also nice to have the joy of a surprise of the beautiful white Dahlia. It’s stunning!!
Years ago I grew Dahlias too and like you I ran out of space so I simply quit taking them out of the ground for winter . They didn’t come up the next year.
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I may not have made it clear that Ivy repainted the gnome herself.
Dahlias can survive the winter here so that makes them too easy to grow 😊
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I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a dahlia in bloom. Yours is splendid!
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I am sorry about the vandalism, but your lovely Dahlia must be some consolation.
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Thank you, T. Even in this one post, the Goods far outweigh the Bad and are, as you say, some (great) consolation.
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Vandalism is so sad, and totally unnecessary. That makes me mad.
Your garden is lovely though. The park looks like a great place to visit and enjoy family time.
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Queen Anne’s lace is tall, right? There is some at a home nearby, but it’s tall and I haven’t seen it for a few years – it looks like it.
It cracks me up that the English call it Cow Parsley.
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What I’ve seen is not very tall — 3 feet or less usually….? Just now I looked at photos of
Cow Parsley
, which doesn’t look like the
Queen Anne’s Lace
I know. But I suppose they are the same, just regional variants of the same species.
I got confused at first, reading your comment, because I was thinking about about
Cow Parsnip
, which I was just trying keep straight from
Angelica
last week. All four of these are in the carrot family. As long as we don’t eat any of them, we don’t have to worry about confusing them with another Carrot Family member,
Poison Hemlock
!!
.
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Ivy did a fabulous job with your gnome! I had a fun gnome my kids gifted me for mother’s day year’s ago that was a gnome reading under a mushroom that had spots that glowed in the dark. Sadly, it was resin and the mushroom finally cracked after years of moving around with us. Years ago, we also had the grievous experience of a theft of a holy family statue that my grandmother had given me from our front garden. It really mad me sad. I hope you and your grandchildren are able to remake the fairy village. Maybe they just migrated somewhere south for the winter!
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These material things represent much bigger realities in our lives – you’ve reminded me of that. So we can’t be so sad as if we didn’t know those realities of worship and community and Christ Himself.
Thank you for the encouragement, Emily ❤️
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