More yard babble (TL;DR)

Last night I took the trash down to the curb barefoot for the first time ever. The air was cool but the concrete was warm under my feet. The bin rolled smoothly and no neighbor dogs took notice. It was a sublime moment.

Apparently I have a private crew of yard workers who will just cruise into town periodically and mow and weedeat and bring me bulbs and clumps of greenery and sprigs of trees to plant. This is a fabulous arrangement for me. Saturday, of course, it was my mom and grandmother and youngest nephew who were in town, but yesterday my it was my mom, dad, grandmother, and aunt who arrived well before noon with a truck bed appointed with the finest lawn gadgets a girl could ever hope for. My dad, as a housewarming present, brought me a pushmower. Bonus: He did the inaugural mow, and the yard looks completely roll-around-in-it fantastic now. He also let me try out two different weedeaters so that I’d know what size suited me best (shorter) for when that purchase time comes. And that man tilled up the back half of the front flowerbed so I can more easily remove the spring star flower bulbs that have volunteered and absolutely taken over the yard. I mean, those flowers are pretty and all, but they look like weeds when they are everywhere. Their little scattered leaves look like wild onions. And they are hard to get control of. Those damn bulbs are everywhere. I went out today and picked through the upturned soil for five minutes before a case of the lazies kicked in and I decided to just pretend they weren’t a problem. Then I wet the grass and scattered Weed and Feed (I merely mention this so I will remember when I did it).

All the action yesterday happened in the span of roughly two hours, as by the time it was over, I had to rush to work and they had to leave. Booo. But I can tell they get a kick out of helping me with my yard and making the place look nice. And look nice it does. I don’t want to toot my own horn here, because I didn’t do all that much, but this place looks pretty spiffy in the spring time. I’ve got all these old azaleas with trunks the size of human thighs that are blooming the most amazing blooms (described by London Looks as heaps of sherbet, which is such a beautiful description). I can’t even describe how good for my soul it is to look up from whatever I’m doing and see these giant pink clumps of beauty just outside the window, falling all over themselves to get at the light. After so many months of looking up to see brown twiggy death, this does a brain good.

I was telling Phil the other night during a moment of stark sentimentality that I want to become a good steward of the land. I want to be good to the land and coax goodness out of it. I have had handed to me the perfect opportunity to do so; someone who used to live here loved this little plot of land with a fierceness and that becomes more and more clear with each slow and deliberate lap I take outside. Little brick paths and borders peek from the dirt and become unearthed with time and grass removal. Plants long dormant are coming out to say hi. I wish this house had kept a blog; I sure would have loved to know its stories.