Another Corner of the Garden

This photo is dedicated to my older son's passion: basketball. We are lucky enough to have a driveway with a hoop where he can play for hours until he practically keels over with exhaustion. Alone or with friends, makes no difference. He has been known to play basketball for six hours a day!

This is a wonderful thing because if there is one thing that boy has it is energy to burn. He has a big personality, with big emotions and ideas and big expressions of those emotions and ideas! If he were trapped inside, he'd probably go nuts...along with the rest of us!

When he was little he had no interest whatsoever in playing with balls. At about age six he started getting interested in bouncing a basketball and by age seven I signed him up for lessons. At first he was a very timid player. He hung back to see what the other kids were doing. He never wanted to be first in line, so that he'd have time to figure out the activity before it was his turn.

He has never had the natural athletic grace that some kids seem born with. He's not the guy making all the fancy baskets. But what he does have is passion and heart. He's a solid team player who is willing to pass the ball and let another kid score. And through practice, practice, practice he has become a valued member of his team. He was selected to play in an international mini-basketball tournament two years in a row.

The ball in the photo above looks pretty next to the flowers at the foot of the olive tree, but everywhere you turn in the yard you can see other balls lying around. He says, "you can never have too many!"