Remember your Creator in the days of your youth! |
When I was a teenager in south Africa, I decided I'd like to try to grow my own bananas. So, I went to an isolated grove of banana "trees" growing near the edge of our mission station, and dug one up and planted it in my own garden. Needless to say, not much happened with that particular tree. However, the next year I noticed a new plant emerging from the ground next to the plant I had moved into my garden. It grew rapidly. I of course recognized it as a banana tree, but I had never had any experience growing bananas, so I didn't know what to expect. This type of variety does not get very
large. The plant might grow as high as 10 feet. In any event, sure enough, bananas eventually began to grow from the main plant. When it was time to harvest them I climbed a small ladder and cut the whole cluster off of the main plant. I didn't realize how heavy the whole thing would be! In any event, I hoisted it onto my right shoulder to take down to our back porch to hang them up from a hook. On the way down to the house, I felt a slight tickling all over my neck and right arm. Initially, I didn't know what it was. But then, I suddenly knew! I realized that it was baby spiders, dozens of them, running around my upper body! You see, banana leaves open one at a time, and before the new one opens, it's like a tube at the top of the plant. Without fail, if I folded the top of the leaf over and sealed it with a clothespin, and then cut the leaf off at the bottom where it attaches,
some creature was caught inside. Always! And, it was always either a bat or two, or a large, adult spider! I had often scared visitors to our mission station by this demonstration! So, with dozens of baby spiders running all over me, I knew which adult creature had to be hiding right there in the bananas I was carrying right next to my
head! continued... |
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