Meandering Mango

Several months ago at work, a few of us got to talking about flowers that grow where you’re not expecting them.  If I recall correctly, one of the ladies told us about how she noticed that she had tulips or daffodils growing in patches where she never planted them.  So I chimed in about how, every year, I will without fail come home one day to a pretty pink flower growing near my fence.  For those of you who really know me…you know that I am no gardener.  In fact, I tell people that I have a “black thumb” — I’m a plant killer.  So it gives me great pleasure to come home once a summer to find that my pink floral friend has reemerged without my having to so much as lift a finger for her care.

The first summer that we noticed the flower, I was so shocked by its appearance in our yard that I went out to pick it up.  I thought that it was a fake flower that had somehow blown over the fence…I mean it literally showed up overnight.  But when I got outside, I noticed that it was indeed firmly planted in the crummy soil of our back yard.  “Bizarre,” I thought.  I definitely didn’t plant it (which is probably why it has survived more than one summer).  Yet every year, it comes up again.  When I explained to Troy what the flower looks like, he said, “Oh yeah, it’s a Surprise Lily.  Or sometimes they call them Naked Ladies.”  A quick Google Image search confirmed that, indeed, I had a Naked Lady in my back yard.  Ever since that day, I have just been dying to write a post with this title.

I was a little worried this year because it was nearly August, and I hadn’t seen the flower yet.  Then on Tuesday, like she had never gone away, there she was.  It wasn’t there in the morning, but as I left the garage to walk to the house after work, I noticed it in its full pink glory.  Giddy about being able to finally write my post, I grabbed the camera and headed out to document the arrival.  I lined up the shot, and then drats! — dead battery.  And of course we can’t find the charger anywhere.  Not to be foiled by a silly little battery, I forged ahead.  So here it is…the Naked Lady in my back yard.  Well, not really MY back yard but someone’s.