the watering can

If you are squeamish, skip this post. You have been warned.

We have a plastic green watering can that lives in the garage. It lives right next to the overhead door so that if I need to water some flowers that the hose won't reach, it is right there. I have got into the habit of filling it up full and leaving some water in it so that I don't have to fill it so often. Since we have had a good cadence of rain, I have not used it for a long time. So to recap: water can, half full of water, sitting in garage for a long time.

"What is that smell?" My wife kept asking. I told her it was the trash. But even after the trash was out to the street, the smell lingered. Yesterday I picked up the watercan which I have not moved for months. Whew. The smell is the water can. I look inside. The water is brown. For some reason, the water in the can has soured. I take the can around the house to the hose bib and dump the water out. I turn on the hose and clean out the inside, and here they come: those lovely bones. Little bones.

At first I thought it was a bird, but then I realize there are no feathers. What ever it was, got in the bucket looking for water, and could not get back out. Died, right in the garage and completely decomposed in the watercan. Nothing left but bones. Frog? Mouse? Impossible to tell at this point.

There are many morals to this story. Sometimes we get ourselves into places that we can't get out of. Look before you leap. Water is a good and needful thing, but too much of a good thing can get a person off track. Think it through. Well over half of the problems that people tell me about are self-induced.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.