Sometime back in the ’80′s, Mrs. MZM and I bought a nice little house on the prairie in Greenville, South Carolina. It was located on a beautifully wooded street with a gentle hill at each end. Quite picturesque, actually, but we ended up being stuck there for days during an unusually heavy winter storm that winter! But that’s, um, another story…

Our property was fairly large; nearly an acre in size (at least compared to your typical ¼-acre “city” lots we were familiar with), and blessed with plenty of mature oak trees.

But who knew those trees would turn us into (insert dramatic pause here)… killers? (Flash of lightning; clap of thunder; sound of terrified scream)

Now before you grab your cell phones and dial 911 (Eek! Help, police!), please hear me out; I assure you it was completely unintentional. But ignorance, as they say, is no excuse. (To which I might add this corollary: while it may not be an excuse, it may sometimes be a dandy reason.)

We purchased the property in early fall, and before too long the local foliage began its stunning annual color-change. This event was highly anticipated by us because the (mostly) pine trees around the bulk of the Houston area generally don’t change colors unless they’re, you know, dying).

But as fall moseyed on (a western Texas term that means strolling along without a care in the world) towards winter, well… let’s just say we garnered a fresh appreciation of why this particular season is called “fall”.

See, all those pretty leaves began to, uh, fall. And yes, I can see all you northerners shakin’ your heads in pity. Go ahead, laugh it up. (Oh, and for the record, northerner is a southeast Texas expression that means anyone who lives farther north than Waco, Texas. Click on the map.)

Anyway, I have no idea what particular kinds of oak trees we had on our property; I just know that some of them had the most incredibly huge leaves! Hey, I know stuff is supposed to be bigger in Texas, but we’d never seen anything like this before; I could have strapped a couple on and used them for parachutes!

It’s no exaggeration to say that when walking outside, we had to keep an eye cast upward at all times to avoid getting beaned by one of the larger ones as they plummeted to the ground; I’d swear the ground shook! (Well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration.)

But as fall headed towards its inevitable transition to winter, well, the leaves kept, uh, coming… and coming… and… Then Mrs. MZM and I had what we thought at the time was an absolutely brilliant and clever idea!

Why not send some of these big colorful leaves back home to Houston? In fact, for the one particular relative we had in mind, it would make the perfect Christmas gift: cheap to buy (or in this case, free) and cheap to mail (big box, low weight).

So we collected a large boxful of the best specimens, wrapped it up real nice, and sent it via pony express mule train UPS to Mrs. MZM’s uncle Tag. We knew he would appreciate them (truly), and besides, he had a small vegetable garden in his back yard and could always mulch them up and spread them around. (Oh, yeah, it was practical, too – the perfect gift indeed!)

Fast forward about six months (sound of chipmunks discussing the weather).

That next summer during a visit back home, Mrs. MZM and I stopped by her uncle’s place. While there, however, I couldn’t help but notice his garden looked much different than usual. Half of it looked fairly normal: filled with cucumber vines, lettuce, turnips, etc. The other side though, well, it had a somewhat, er, different look.

It turned out he had done exactly what we predicted with that boxful of leaves – spread them around that side of the garden. Unfortunately, there must have been something indigenous to plants in South Carolina – some mold or fungus or something – that, er, wasn’t compatible with plants grown in Texas; those poor plants never had a chance (sound of a lone trumpet playing Taps).

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen; it was a simple act of innocence and fun – that turned us into killers. (Flash of lightning; clap of – well, you get the picture.)

Everything on that half of his garden (and yes, even the weeds!) was, well, deader’n a doornail. Yep, that’s right; it was deceased; kaput; K-O’d; terminated; packed up; six feet under; it bit the big one; gone to that great farmer’s market in the sky… er, you get the picture, right? The only thing missing was a chalk outline of the deceased.

*Sigh*

So what can we learn from this heinous crime against nature? Well… how about a garden analogy?

Obviously, in gardens as well as life, growth takes place because of the nurturing work the gardener puts into it. Well, let’s not forget there could be unseen influences that can wreak havoc with the fruit of our labors. (How am I doin’ so far?)

See, those things that can influence us negatively, well, they have a way of sneaking up on us without our realizing just what they’re really doing. They sortof infiltrate our thinking in rather insidious ways, don’t you know. Things like procrastination, laziness, distraction; if left to accumulate, these things can spell death (that’s D-E-A-T-H) to virtually any dream or goal.

All I can say is, it pays to consider those influences carefully. Consider the consequences of everything we do. You never know; something that appears innocent and fun can turn into a sneaky harbinger of death (er, to your goals and dreams) – if they distract you from the “main thing”.

So what about it? Have YOU had to deal with any distractions, procrastinations or other dastardly dangers lately? What did you do and how did it turn out? Is it a constant struggle or only an occasional battle?

What’s YOUR story?