Won With Nature

Ben is in western Tennessee with his girlfriend’s family this week. Both of them have such high grades that they were able to take the last week of school off, having finished all of their work early. (Read that last sentence again, please. I still have a hard time realizing I’m saying these things.)

So, while Male Offspring is galavanting around, it’s up to me to do the yardwork. Although I used to do it all the time, it’s been years since I’ve mowed the lawn. (Hey, that’s why we have kids.) How long, you ask? Long enough for two tree seeds to germinate and grow to eight feet at the side of the house, within a foot of the foundation. So after I mowed, I spent an hour or so hacking down trees, saplings and seedlings that had taken root near the house and fence. Gotta talk to that boy.


We have a pretty big yard that is difficult to maintain, mostly because we don’t want to maintain it. Half of the back yard is euphemistically dubbed “the woods” so that we don’t have to mow it as often. Still, it does give us those pretty white violets every spring. But it also gives us wild raspberries—ouch!— and poison ivy.

You know, a bunch of my favorite bloggers write pastoral posts of working with the earth, nurturing their gardens and feeling one with nature. I wish that was me. Because the only reason I like yardwork is the way the yard looks when it’s done. I would be more just as thrilled to have someone else do it. The way I see it, it’s me vs. nature, and nature would win if I had my way. I emerged victorious this round, but it’s only a matter of time.

I need a smaller house. And a smaller yard.