Baking, Gardening, and a Dead Zucchini

The guys and I donned our aprons and went to work baking up goodness in the kitchen. X has treat for FHE so he wanted banana bread. L has the lesson which will be sharing cookies with others, so we made both. Who can have too many treats??!

X-man loves to help me with the garden. And I must say I'm rather excited this year, because something is actually growing in the garden!! We had our handful of green beans the other night, as well as some crunchy snap peas. Yeah! I'll get a green thumb yet.

Oh, and then there's this lovely picture to humble my gardening pride. My beautiful zucchini--gone. But there was a lesson there. My zucchini was flourishing: big, green leaves, bright orange flowers, little green fingers of zucchini starting with the promise of zucchini bread, zucchini dishes, and baskets of zucchini to the neighbors. Then I noticed the leaves wilting, and the stalk looking all dried out. All thanks to a nice little pest called the vine borer. The female flying insect laid her eggs at the base of the stalk. When the eggs hatched the larvae burrowed into the stalk and sucked all the nutrients for itself and left my plant with nothing. Once the larvae had invaded the stalk there was nothing to be done for the plant. A big storm came by and struck it down. Isn't sin or doubt or gossip like that little vine borer? It can just ease it's way into our lives in the littlest ways, just like that tiny egg. And then if we aren't vigilent and on the defense it can stay and slowly invade our lives, robbing us of the nutrients and blessings we need from our Source. I didn't see the effects of that silly little pest until it was too late. I need to throw my sad little zucchini away, but for now I keep it there to remind me to be vigilent and watchful, and only allow the wholesome and uplifting into my life.