The weather turns hot and muggy and the lawn mowing routine turns into an endurance test. Man and machine against the smog of tree pollen and grass that needs cutting twice a week.

In a hurry to finish the latest cutting, I skipped the midway point water break and kept pushing forward. Wheezing and dehydrated I flopped into the Adirondack chair at the finish line. Sure the lawn looked good, but everywhere I looked something else needed attention. Bittersweet was choking the rosebush. The potted flowers were wilting in the heat.

The storm door glass was well overdue to have the summer screen installed for hot weather. Instead of feeling satisfied with a fresh cut lawn all I was seeing were more projects.

Photo Shoot:The Long Days of June

For some reason the stalks of spent iris blooms were especially bothersome. The iris is an amazing flower, look at one up close and just try to figure out how Mother Nature assembled those blooms. But like many things in the spinning seasons, the flowers are short-lived even with several blooms to each stalk. The task of cutting off the stalks is a simple one and 10 minutes with a pair of garden shears would have checked this off the to-do list.

Closer observation revealed perhaps my desire for iris clear-cutting was a bit premature. There was still one stalk under the cedar tree presenting two flowers, one almost gone by, the other not fully opened.

In haste to make the front lawn look perfect my “seeing” was focused on all the things yet to accomplish. I was already looking to the future and hadn’t fully seen what was still in the present. Leonardo Da Vinci said 500 years ago, “Learn how to see. Everything connects to everything else.” Selectively seeing things gives a skewed vision.

These days it is easy to see a world full of problems. The glass may indeed be only half full or empty depending on your vision. But all agree it still has liquid inside. There is always more work to do.

It is easy to get caught up in it all. Perhaps it is best to see “everything else” and how things are connected. It certainly seemed to work for Leonardo.

Photo Shoot:Ode to the lilac