Raking Leaves, the Impending Doom of the Holidays, But the Cabbage and Mums Look Great
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Patrick Murray asked:
The sun breaks through and the majority of the leaves finally fallen from the tree out front. In a few hours I’ll be out there cursing mother nature for not just blowing them away. On the upside the sun will be out and the skies are clear. It’s a Sunday and after all the things I have to do for others the remainder of the time will be spent aimlessly meandering around, putting away some pots, trimming back some plants and cutting down the morning glories that took for ever to turn brown and go to seed.. That is that is until the game comes on or so I thought.
How can such a small tree produce so many leaves? I wonder all the while knowing what’s really lurking around the corner.
The invasion is not my parents who are coming from back east to spend the first Thanksgiving with us in years. Admittedly I don’t go back east to see them on the Holiday either. Still the invasion is coming and there is nothing I can do to deter it but it’s not my nephews who will run through the house like screaming maniacs wrestling, playing Star Wars, and just being boys. In all fairness they’re really good well behaved kids thanks to my sister but Grand Pa and Uncle Patty think its funny to wind them up, encourage the rowdy behavior so they rip and tear and yell like savages. It keeps me entertained.
The Doom of the holidays is less obvious than that. Drinking down about the 12th cup of coffee the insane ritual of black Friday creeps in. So as the day winds on my little one who is now 10 and eating me out of house and home as she hits yet another growth spurt decides to “help”. Seriously she’s on her 3rd shoe size since school started back in August. She comes up to me “when can we do the Christmas lights?”
This is the invasion, the impending sense of doom that I knew was coming. “It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.” I tell her in my most understanding and paternal voice as I go back to the task at hand of planting bulbs where earlier in the day I opted to rip out some distressed shrubs. Good spring colors, different blooms, it will be great if and when winter finally passes and things start to grow again.
Around the same time the neighbors started getting out ladders, Across the street the kids were already on the damn roof wearing Santa hats and turning their property into something that would have made Clark Griswald so very proud. I was tempted to call OSHA but thought better of it. As the last leaves hit the bio bags and compost pile here she comes with a sorry string of lights and the timer she managed to dig out of the holiday decorations in the basement all by herself.
How could I say no? So it began as we placed the first string over the rose tree and its last fleeting blooms of the season I thought how they should have cut it back some earlier in the fall but secretly wanted those last flowers. Still she seemed thrilled as we strung the lights up across the porch roof, around the posts, finally lining one side of the walk with a series of two foot high light up Candy Canes. On the other side the phlox had taken over and were encroaching on the concrete. For the sake of sanity, and international relations in my own home I stayed with the task at hand of decorating and left them there to be cut back another day. For me leaving plants to be cut back another day is a day that rarely comes because I see a few buds and who needs a clear concrete path if they can have a few more blooms. If you don’t like having to dodge my own semi manicured version of nature don’t come over.
My Little One was ecstatic beyond words and bouncing like it was actually Christmas morning. I felt like Scrooge but gave in like I always do on the little things. She was excited and youthful, a trait that is not found quite as often in kids these days. I enjoyed it, a kid who was just that a kid. No social pressure, no what am I missing on TV or a favorite website. Just a few hours of puttering and playing and telling me how things should be and how weird they boys at school are.
Somewhere in the back of my mind as we placed a few strings over the enormous and still blooming Mums and picking the last of the Halloween cobwebs of the now barren maple tree I wondered if I hadn’t become as bad as the retail world who put up their decorations, Santa and Reindeer statues, wreaths and Holly right after Halloween.
As we debated, but mostly she talked and I listened to how we should have lights on the back porch “since no one else does” and how I’m not Nearly as cool as Kay up the street with an ice skating frosty decoration surrounded by a blue strings of lights to make a pretend pond we came across what had been a struggling cabbage plant that was given to her to “grow” at the end of the last school year. To say it hadn’t thrived but until now had just survived would be accurate but now it was large and thriving.
It was enough of a distraction to forget about her ambition to make me festive and excited about putting lights up on the back porch…for now. However like the cold winds that are starting to blow, the hordes of family members making their way to holiday meals, and the insane crowds gathered outside of retailers over night going into Friday (but I still love you Honey) the doom of the holidays is here. So I’ll put on a good face, sit quietly with my books, spend too much time watching football to make up for all the games I’ve missed this fall and wait for the first green blades of grass. The first crocus to push through the spring snow, followed by the daffodils and tulips.
By then chances are my little one will be another shoe size or so bigger and someday not all that far away I’ll look back and miss all the help I had putting up the lights too early. She’ll be off doing more important things, wearing out the key pad texting on a new cell phone and I’ll still be outside hanging off a ladder
Have a safe and Happy Holiday Season.
Heat Pump Ratings
The sun breaks through and the majority of the leaves finally fallen from the tree out front. In a few hours I’ll be out there cursing mother nature for not just blowing them away. On the upside the sun will be out and the skies are clear. It’s a Sunday and after all the things I have to do for others the remainder of the time will be spent aimlessly meandering around, putting away some pots, trimming back some plants and cutting down the morning glories that took for ever to turn brown and go to seed.. That is that is until the game comes on or so I thought.
How can such a small tree produce so many leaves? I wonder all the while knowing what’s really lurking around the corner.
The invasion is not my parents who are coming from back east to spend the first Thanksgiving with us in years. Admittedly I don’t go back east to see them on the Holiday either. Still the invasion is coming and there is nothing I can do to deter it but it’s not my nephews who will run through the house like screaming maniacs wrestling, playing Star Wars, and just being boys. In all fairness they’re really good well behaved kids thanks to my sister but Grand Pa and Uncle Patty think its funny to wind them up, encourage the rowdy behavior so they rip and tear and yell like savages. It keeps me entertained.
The Doom of the holidays is less obvious than that. Drinking down about the 12th cup of coffee the insane ritual of black Friday creeps in. So as the day winds on my little one who is now 10 and eating me out of house and home as she hits yet another growth spurt decides to “help”. Seriously she’s on her 3rd shoe size since school started back in August. She comes up to me “when can we do the Christmas lights?”
This is the invasion, the impending sense of doom that I knew was coming. “It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.” I tell her in my most understanding and paternal voice as I go back to the task at hand of planting bulbs where earlier in the day I opted to rip out some distressed shrubs. Good spring colors, different blooms, it will be great if and when winter finally passes and things start to grow again.
Around the same time the neighbors started getting out ladders, Across the street the kids were already on the damn roof wearing Santa hats and turning their property into something that would have made Clark Griswald so very proud. I was tempted to call OSHA but thought better of it. As the last leaves hit the bio bags and compost pile here she comes with a sorry string of lights and the timer she managed to dig out of the holiday decorations in the basement all by herself.
How could I say no? So it began as we placed the first string over the rose tree and its last fleeting blooms of the season I thought how they should have cut it back some earlier in the fall but secretly wanted those last flowers. Still she seemed thrilled as we strung the lights up across the porch roof, around the posts, finally lining one side of the walk with a series of two foot high light up Candy Canes. On the other side the phlox had taken over and were encroaching on the concrete. For the sake of sanity, and international relations in my own home I stayed with the task at hand of decorating and left them there to be cut back another day. For me leaving plants to be cut back another day is a day that rarely comes because I see a few buds and who needs a clear concrete path if they can have a few more blooms. If you don’t like having to dodge my own semi manicured version of nature don’t come over.
My Little One was ecstatic beyond words and bouncing like it was actually Christmas morning. I felt like Scrooge but gave in like I always do on the little things. She was excited and youthful, a trait that is not found quite as often in kids these days. I enjoyed it, a kid who was just that a kid. No social pressure, no what am I missing on TV or a favorite website. Just a few hours of puttering and playing and telling me how things should be and how weird they boys at school are.
Somewhere in the back of my mind as we placed a few strings over the enormous and still blooming Mums and picking the last of the Halloween cobwebs of the now barren maple tree I wondered if I hadn’t become as bad as the retail world who put up their decorations, Santa and Reindeer statues, wreaths and Holly right after Halloween.
As we debated, but mostly she talked and I listened to how we should have lights on the back porch “since no one else does” and how I’m not Nearly as cool as Kay up the street with an ice skating frosty decoration surrounded by a blue strings of lights to make a pretend pond we came across what had been a struggling cabbage plant that was given to her to “grow” at the end of the last school year. To say it hadn’t thrived but until now had just survived would be accurate but now it was large and thriving.
It was enough of a distraction to forget about her ambition to make me festive and excited about putting lights up on the back porch…for now. However like the cold winds that are starting to blow, the hordes of family members making their way to holiday meals, and the insane crowds gathered outside of retailers over night going into Friday (but I still love you Honey) the doom of the holidays is here. So I’ll put on a good face, sit quietly with my books, spend too much time watching football to make up for all the games I’ve missed this fall and wait for the first green blades of grass. The first crocus to push through the spring snow, followed by the daffodils and tulips.
By then chances are my little one will be another shoe size or so bigger and someday not all that far away I’ll look back and miss all the help I had putting up the lights too early. She’ll be off doing more important things, wearing out the key pad texting on a new cell phone and I’ll still be outside hanging off a ladder
Have a safe and Happy Holiday Season.
Heat Pump Ratings
