A cold front carrying a faint drizzle plowed the previous day's seventies high and made us reach for jackets on our way out the door. Rakes and wheelbarrow were brought from behind the shed - tools for the trade of spring yard cleaning if ever there were. A sweep of the ground beneath the willow tree produced heaps of this year's branches and last year's leaves; the tear-out of an old chicken run produced old wood and wire; an vigorous raking beneath the evergreens created mounds of cones, needles, and trash.
When one of our boys asked why we were cleaning up this part of the property, not even close to our house, and technically not even ours, we said that was simple: It was the right thing to do.
Huh.
This concept was clearly not on original one with some of the three. It seemed at best, odd, and at worst, a waste of time. Clean up a place that isn't even ours? For nothing?
Precisely.
But when they heard that burning patches of dead grass, waste wood, and yard debris was on the agenda, someone ran for a roll of toilet paper. Wad-wrapped around the ends of long, sturdy sticks, then soaked in diesel, then lit to flaming, they were matchsticks on steroids. You might imagine the grinning. Boys with torches in dry grass (closely watched and guided by dad, with all necessary precautions in place), yes, you can imagine.
On and on we raked, we burned, we cleaned. We found the ground. We ran for cold pizza and guzzles of water. (And yes, some even dilly-dallied and rolled across the lawn, making odd Chewbacca noises now and then.) We leaned on rake handles and looked behind us at what we'd accomplished.
I smiled when, later in the day, a boy looked with satisfaction at the place where we'd begun and said, "That looks so much better."
Isn't it true that we often get so used to caring for our own, that our eyes rarely fall outside our neat & tidy circle? There may be a jumble over there that needs attention which nobody else can pay. But, for a snatch of weekend hours, we can. We'll take our boys along, step beyond our border, and with rakes, wheelbarrow, and fire, we'll do our best to make things better.
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