“Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world.”
–Pema Chodron
–Pema Chodron
I have been mulling this one over for a bit (see Saturday's post), and it's become more obvious as the spring has progressed... our yard is my Common Miracle. Not just this week, but every week so far this spring, it seems.
I guess, more to the point, the real miracle is my attitude toward the yard, yardwork and all things weed/grass/dirt/plant related. I am loving it. All of it. Even the stuff I don't particularly enjoy, like mowing the weedy pasture space outside the yard proper, sneezing 65 times and displacing poor little groundhog babies; even that chore feels good.
But there really is so much good stuff, it makes the dirt mowing easy (easier) to deal with:
*Being outside, being warm and feeling the sun on my back? Loving it.
*Getting the pots full of annuals, and new perennials tucked into the beds. So much fun.
*Keeping the lawn edge tidy with that amazing edger husband got me last fall? Fabulous.
*Plotting juniper removal and planning replacement shrubs? Great! (Watching an incredible tractor contraption clomp down on a couple of boxwoods this afternoon and lift them fairly effortlessly out of the ground was icing on the cake.)
*Seeing the fish in the pond come nibbling for food? So pretty. And the birds at the feeder? Always a bright spark to my day.
*Watering newly planted seeds--whether green beans or sunflowers--and imagining 60 short days from now... blossoms and beans!
*Keeping an eye out for each new bloom, whether peony or rhododendron or pansy or hydrangea or... Lovely.
Yes, the weeds will come. The garden is already in need of a hoe or two, and I've applied heave-hoe to other beds as well... that will only escalate, and round about August I'm pretty sure I will not be feeling quite so miraculous about each and every aspect of the yard. But for now, I'll take it.
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I wish I were there to help rip out your junipers. A chain on your tractor bucket should yank them right out.
ReplyDeleteWorking outside brings on the sweat... and making your pretty is an art.
Hence this quote:
"Art is 110 percent sweat." -Robert Riskin
Making your yard pretty is an art. (oops)
ReplyDeleteOur yard is art in progress, for sure! I wish you were here to rip them out too, Pa, but you would love the attachment the guy has on his tractor that grabs them and yanks them out of the ground. Fabulous!
DeleteIt sounds BLISSFUL. I will live vicariously through you for the next few months. Summer is here- when I spent about 45 minutes in the garden today and FELT my skin sort of sizzling and become blazing hot, so hot that it hurt, I knew for sure that spring is done. We have a few weeks before the daily rains, but they have already changed our daily forecast to 30% chance of rain in the mornings, 50% after 1pm. It's just the default forecast now. It does provide for some beautiful clouds in the afternoon as the storms try to build up, and the summer storms will provide for AMAZING sunsets once they really start going. I keep reminding myself that as long as my plants do okay, it will be a relief not to have to water every single day, sometimes twice a day. It will actually be a *huge* relief, to be honest. The watering has gotten out of hand. It will be more time I can spend making art :) I am also reminding myself that fall is just a few months away- I start "officially" celebrating it in August so it's a countdown for me! So I'm sort of looking forward to summer as a quiet time, with *more* time.
ReplyDeleteI love your sunset photos on Facebook, Chel! Sometimes I have a hard time believing we live in the same country, with all the differences in our climates!! I hope your summer is less brutal than usual. Our 100-degree temps are still a few weeks off, knock on wood, and even then the evenings cool down quite nicely (usually).
DeleteYour yard is a major blessing...it was so beautiful already when we were there a couple weeks ago. Did you see I used a photo of your apple blossoms on my blog after we were there? My little apple trees all have some blossoms on them now...apple blossoms are my favourite of all fruit blossoms.
ReplyDeleteI feel blessed to be in a country where I don't have to have junipers for winter green. But I have planted numerous junipers in the past and if they get overgrown they have had to be yanked...I do feel a little badly when I have to rip them...they are living and I cannot just blithely pull them out. Read Lord of the Rings, you know.
Enjoy your yard. That lawn may be big with lots of mowing time but it is very lovely, giving off an oasis of green around your house to keep you cool. (well, at least in your mind)
It is such a help to have Seth mowing this summer already. He's more or less embraced the chore (not really an option to NOT) and it gives me that extra hour to putter and pull weeds, water, etc. It's wonderful.
DeleteI do not have your conscience for ripping out plants... probably *should*, but don't...