Happy Mother’s Day! (by Dave)
We’ve had incredibly good weather in Charlotte this weekend, being in the low 70′s yesterday and mid-to-high 60′s today.
Robyn asked the children to help her replant her “Mother’s Day Garden”, an old tiered fountain. The fountain was a maintenance nightmare so she turned it into a colorful cactus, plant, and flower garden with cascading greenery (very fun and creative). The little ones also helped us weed and straighten the planting beds around the house, which was no small chore given our month-long absence in April for our trip North.
While we usually get some moans of discomfort from some of the kids when gardening, a few bucks bought several pair of cotton gardening gloves in different colors and patterns, and helped facilitate our young troop to overcome their biggest complaint and apprehension: hurting hands.
I am not sure why we have not done this a long time ago. I know from my professional life that the best way to encourage an employee to do a job is to facilitate them in performing their duties and keep the task moving so they can recognize visible, tangible results. That is what the simple addition of garden gloves did for our little tigers, plus the variety of styles threw in a fun and personalized element for each of them. We had a great day and were able to clean up all but the blueberry garden (which is a fun chore we saved for another day).
Bells–recently bought some nicely toned silvery brass bells. Thinking of mounting one in the garden so Robyn and the children can play with it.
