Organic Business in my backyard

Are you familiar with “wandering Jews”?
No, not the Diaspora kind, the backyard plant kind.
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As the hellish summer of 2011 brought so many of our backyard plants to an end, due to the heat, these Jews simply thrive in all kinds of soil, with little or no water for long periods.
Unlike other plants in the beds, and in the pots surrounding our backyard, I have not killed them!
Here’s what a web resource for House Plants described them as--
Common Name: Wandering Jew, Chain Plant, Purple Heart Plant; Genus:  Tradescantia
Family:  Commelinaceae; Plant Type: Perennial; Origin: South America
These plants have proliferated all over our backyard. The origin of this planting is my mother-in-law, Fran Porter, who was enthusiastic about these miracle plants( Fran was enthusiastic about many things, mostly encouraging others to live up to their potential!) and gave us a few sprigs back before she got ill, sometime before 2005.
Now I see these plants growing freely and exhibiting so many lessons for my life and the life of those around me, and I have to pause to remember Fran’s great spiritual depth and wisdom.
Wisdom is a theme in my life—and has been since the fateful days of the summer of 1997, when I impulsively made a career change that led me away from the comfortable life of a career banker, and  caused my focus and attitude about life to change. That decision and the consequences have reverberated through our lives that year…and brought so many life lessons.
Back then, Fran’s words as legacy live on—just this morning I found the inscription in my original “The Message” New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs…dated 12/25/97—inscribing the gift as words to strengthen—”in down times and in up times, and for all times.”
I see so much wisdom as I look back on Fran’s life and the years since I left banking…and my organic escapades with backyard gardening teaches me many lessons, and analogies.
I hope to explore and share some of these insights as the next few days pass.

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