The Rituals of Spring

 Back in Virginia, I expect it’s spring. If the philistines who bought the Little Blue House had not decimated its front yard, our former home would no doubt be surrounded by glorious blooms, Mulch Madness would have been wrapped up, and the spring vegetable garden would have been planted.

We live in Massachusetts now, so the story is a little different. After four Nor’easters in March, we’re expecting… another cold front this weekend – what fun!

Still. This past weekend, we had a Saturday that was (mostly) sunny and (relatively) warm. And so I enjoyed my first gardening day of 2018.

Granted, no actual gardening activities took place. Saturday was strictly a cleanup operation. This included:

• Sawing up giant limbs from our giant pine tree that had been deposited in our yard by the various previously mentioned nor’easters. I learned that sawing up branches is a much more exhausting chore than I would have imagined.
• Raking leaves out of the front beds and the gutters on the street. This resulted in a surprisingly large pile of half-composted leaves. My initial plan was to bad ‘em and have ‘em carted away. Now I’m having second thoughts and may fill up the wheelbarrow and take them back to the compost heap to cook further.
• Spring-cleaning poop patrol. We have three pups now since adopting Daisy last March. Three dogs + short winter days + four nor’easters = months of neglected backyard poop patrol = well, I just did the fifth pass through the entire backyard, and I STILL found desiccated, aged poops back there to shovel. 

After four hours of raking, shoveling, and sawing, I was exhausted. But as David Letterman used to say, it was a good kind of tired. AND for the first time in a while, I found myself developing some new hair-brained cunning schemes.

I totally neglected the yard for nearly all last year. In the spring, I optimistically bought and planted a bunch of shrubs and perennials… and then spent the summer neglecting them. There have been casualties, and I question whether I deserve to buy more and try again. That’s how my brain works.

On the other hand, near the end of summer I was motivated to clean up the beds in the back yard and put in a few things, and it was lovely: it was nice to spend time out there, and I was proud to have friends visit and enjoy it, too.

I want that for this house. Murder House deserves better treatment. It deserves to have a backyard paradise, just like Little Blue House. Hopefully with fewer murders.