Out in the Yard

There is, as you might expect, no burning allowed here in this environmentally conscious state. Residents may dispose of yard waste in big blue barrels provided by Waste Management, Inc. This is the day to fill it as pick up will be about 5:30 a.m. tomorrow. I have tried to keep to a plan to fill it each week, and through some providential act, the rain has seemed to subside on Tuesdays. Today I was out without a coat which is a first since I moved here.

Cutting back bushes and dead plants, pulling dead vines out of the chain link fence, pruning the trees. It felt good to be out getting my hands dirty. The yard here is small but there is plenty to do to clean up after the previous owners. When Andy was here, he sawed up a number of logs originally intended (by them) to border the flower beds, but which had been serving as chew toys for the dogs. Camping firewood now.

It does take me back, however, to brush burning in Osceola. A relaxing end-of-the-afternoon activity out in the back yard with the dogs. I’d take a chair and a cold beverage and maybe a book and tend the fire and watch the day wind down. That yard was huge and getting to be more than I could manage, but still…some happy memories of time spent there with the dogs watching beautiful sunsets and moonrises and smelling the lilacs and honeysuckle. Sometimes a wave of nostalgia washes over me.