Outside, much has happened of late. Neglect of the land and trees has put a fair portion of work at our feet. We wade in, bit by bit, and tackle a little more, then a little more. More clean-up, more care. Truck-loads to the dump, piles burned, trees trimmed, weeds whacked, old concrete jack-hammered and removed, sod wheel-barrowed from one place to another, the garden enlarged.
Whew.
Our muscles feel it.
But, the cared-for and the tidy and the growing are all so good, you know? We see potential, then we see progress. Kind of like the fire pit we have now, over by the creek. My man built it from hunks of jagged-edge concrete that, not so long ago, had been an old sidewalk on the property. A couple days with a jack-hammer, and we had a quite the stone pile, and a question – what to do with a bunch of jacked-up concrete? Light-bulb moment: build a fire ring! Love it when one project’s waste becomes another project’s supply. A fire ring it is, which will be christened tonight with it’s first fire celebrating the birthday of a fourteen-year-old boy.
All this we’re doing is just simple math, I realized. Subtracting here, and adding there. And after all this subtraction, do I ever have some wishful things to add! Hydrangea, bleeding heart, hosta, peony – they’re still only in my mind. But now in the ground (so excited about this), are raspberries, strawberries, corn, potatoes, onions, winter squash, summer squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, and peppers, with a few final things hitting the soil today!
To be in the sun, with the straw hat on, listening to the twitter of so many birds (thanks to all the trees) and the toss-and tumble of the spring-high creek while working the earth – gah, it just doesn’t get much better than this.
Wishing you the loveliest of weekends, friends! Do you have plans to be outside, too?
