nichepoetryandprose

I am trying to restore some sanity to our yard. Lots to do and I lack balance in my life, so I never seem to get around to the yard work!

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We live in woods and cutting a tree or a blade of grass just isn’t on my wish list (see a Facebook group I belong to “Hell no, I won’t mow.“). If you look on an aerial photo of our lot, you just see green trees, although we have a house, and a shed, garage and greenhouse. When we first “cleared” the lot 40 years ago, I told the poor man on the bulldozer that if he touched one of my ribboned trees, he wouldn’t get paid. I can still see him maneuvering, ever so carefully, around a little Witherod bush that accidentally got a bit of ribbon tied to it.

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an aerial of our neighbourhood … that square of trees where a house should be, that’s us … you can just see our house roof and chimney if you look hard

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If you allow nature to take over, it will. Right now, the bane of my life is grapevines and Bracken. The ‘not cut’ rule is abandoned for the delight of toppling yet another Bracken stem. Good thing I can’t climb trees or I’d be up there, after the stray grapevines.

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a photo of our arbour … Bracken and grapevines

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This is a list of the small projects I will try to tackle over the next couple of weeks. Not one would take 20 minutes if I could convince myself to get off planet Meniscus (current writing project), grab the pruning shears and go outside:

1. remove grape vines and Bracken from the Currant bushes and see if I can locate my Gooseberry bush
2. remove the Bracken from the former pool area, now home to a young cherry tree and an eight-year-old Balm-of-Gilead, as well as grapevines and Bracken
3. trim the small firs trees around the power pole … we have seven years of Christmas Trees there, just wishing they could be pruned (yes, I do cut Christmas trees)
4. saw a couple of lower branches off the apple tree (the tree is full of apples this year)
5. clear the little path from the big deck to the main driveway
6. organize the pile of rocks I have been collecting into a short wall (I have a beauty from our drive to New Ireland a couple of weeks ago)
7. drag sticks and leaves out of the pond

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Wish me luck. I will report here on anything I do. Prepare for seven days of silence.

All my best,

Jane