"Sea"

I wrote a post this morning when I was fresh as a daisy and eager for the day.  Now I’m trying to work up energy to take a bath.  The earlier post just doesn’t feel as pertinent any more.

The original idea had to do with the sea of leaves in my backyard with hopes that my brother Pete would blow them away.  That didn’t happen.  He started the lawnmower and set me to mulching the damned things while I cursed my younger self for teaching him about self-sufficiency and female empowerment.  My hands are bruised from the stupid mower and I worked up a sweat while freezing to death.  You wouldn’t know it from these photos, but it’s a big backyard.  Mulching took hours.  I’m thinking of letting the back 40 reforest.

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Peter came over with his bud Dave to take down a couple of trees.  One was dead, the other growing way too enthusiastically too close to the house.  The gas company came out and ripped up the front of my yard fixing gas leaks recently.  I’m not sure if the gas leaks killed the birch tree and nearly killed a rhododendron, but any way you look at it, my front yard is a mess.  My house looks blank without the trees.

This is where I think I ought to be good at landscaping, but I’m not.  Just because I’m an artist with some creative ability doesn’t mean I’m good at this.  My goals are simple enough.  I want the birds to hop around in shrubs or trees just outside my windows.  If the replacement flora provides food for me and/or birds, even better, and pretty flowers, best yet.  Oh yeah, and no weeding.  I want a perpetual garden without effort.

The front yard is tiny, so I think this should all be possible, or it would be possible if I knew how to put it together.  I suppose that’s why somebody planted rhododendrons and pachysandra there in the first place.

I’ve been in this house a long time.  It was my 5-year plan to get $ together enough to buy a real house.  I was renting a 1-bedroom apartment in a haunted Willoughby house for $350/mo when I decided I might as well pay a mortgage and have something to show for it after a while.

5 years came and went, but I was comfortable.  I moved to another state for a while and let some friends move in.  I came back when I got divorced and was really glad to have a home to come back to, especially when I hear what other people pay for mortgages and property taxes.

I got laid off the day the realtor gave me the keys, and spent the first day in my house crying in the basement because I didn’t know how I’d be able to keep it.  Hard work, sacrifice, and a lot of scrimping, but I kept it.  Now I own it.  The letter came from the bank one day, and I felt prouder than you can imagine.

I suppose this post is a stretch for “sea”, but whether it’s a sea of leaves or a sea of debt, or any other kinds of seas, this is my little bit of world where I am the queen of my universe.  I could point out that I’m 2 miles from Lake Erie as the crow flies, and that’s an inland sea.

Peter wouldn’t cooperate with blog photos today, but thanks to him and Dave today!!  BTW, both Dave and Pete are available and have useful skills.  Any takers?