In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Forces of Nature.”

Taking a walk through the neighborhood last week, I found many plants that had come back to life in this incredible spring we have been having in south central Missouri. I knew they would have…they are expected each spring, they are supposed to come back to life after the hard, cold winter.

They return because the plant reseeded last season, or because someone planted them in a certain place. Sometimes nature is the planter, dropping seeds in various places, seeds that get buried in the snow and soil waiting to germinate and bloom when the weather warms.

But this walnut I found lying on the sidewalk was not in the ground, had not established a firm place from which to sprout and grow. But nature, nevertheless, took over and this walnut put out a shoot. I moved it to the grass, pushing it into the ground. I hope the forces of nature continue to serve this small plant, and that it becomes rooted and established in its own special place…the forces of nature.