Looking Forward

     With the recent cold snap the trees have shed their leaves at a rapid rate.  There has been enough frost to stunt the grass and as we push towards the end of Autumn, another season comes to an end. The season of yard work.

     I miss yard work and I do most all of it, from mowing to weeding.  It is so much easier to turn my back on a house that needs cleaned to go outside and work in the yard.  I have a flower garden that is home to the one and only tree in our yard and it also sports a fish pond.  During the good weather, the yard and my garden are my sanctuary.

     Years ago when this yard was Mother's yard it looked quite different than is does today.  She had numerous shrubs and lilac bushes.  There was a grape arbor over the sidewalk that led up from the garage.  Evergreens flanked the south side of the house and tulips and surprise lilies were abundant.  

     There were many trees in the yard.  Three large maples graced the front.  A walnut tree on the south along with a row of poplars and two bird of paradise in the back.  On the north side she planted a red bud tree, from a sprout she had found, on the hottest day of July in the late 60's.  Our neighbor at the time laughed at her and said it would never grow, but it did.  She too, loved yard work.

     When we moved into this house, my husband did most of the yard work and all of the mowing.  Then something unusual began to happen.  Things started to disappear.  I discovered that if he could get the mower over the top of something, it was fair game.  I found myself running behind him while he mowed, yelling loudly over the roar of the mower, to not mow over a particular piece of vegetation.  
     One day, after he had mowed, I was walking through the yard and I asked him what had happened to all the surprise lilies.  He informed me he had "surprised" them.  Since I was usually taking every step with him to prevent such catastrophic disasters from happening in the first place, I took over the mowing duties.  He was fine with that because he likes to mow in straight lines, with no obstacles and this yard was anything but that.

     Then the number of the trees began to dwindle.  A man and a chainsaw can be a dangerous combo to a yard full of trees, but nothing gave him more pleasure than removing a shrub with a chain and a four-wheel drive pick up truck. 

     Always wanting to pass along my love of things to my children, I decided one day they were old enough to learn the joys of yard work.  There was a hedge that grew on the north border of the yard along side of the alley.  It was about five feet tall and in need of trimming.  I armed my two young daughters with nippers and told them to go ahead and trim the hedge.  About thirty minutes later, when I went to check on their progress, the hedge was about a foot tall.  They obviously shared their father's view of yard work. Mother brought down an old photo one day to show the girls.  She told them it was what the yard used to look like, before their father lived here.  Little did she know, they too were accomplices in the yard crimes.

     The yard has seen many changes over the 50 plus years it has been in this family and I'm sure the next 50 will bring even more. In the meantime, I will be looking forward to Spring and the arrival of a new season of yard work.