Since June, everything here at the Creek House has been in a different gear. Hard to say that things have slowed down, in some instances, they have stopped. With other regards, life is moving as fast as ever.
I got a few lines in a song that sums things up: “Always got too much going on. I’ve left a trail of things that are half done.”
It feels like there are too many things half done, and in a different circumstance I would be dangerously close to having a major eruption of activity. I’m not going to say if such behavior in the past has been productive, but it has been my MO, up ‘til now.
The Creek House has a lot of upkeep and overhead… grounds, yard, sanitary and water systems. Add my foolish tinkering to those responsibilities and I am clearly treading water in the deep end of the pool. And then came the accident.
Suddenly MJ was put in the position of taking care of me in addition to dealing with her share of domestic bliss, and all of the basic challenges of living in this location. And her signature is on so many of the lovely features around the yard and in the house, in particular, the flower beds.
The Creek House enjoys some remarkable natural features: the creek, shale cliffs, giant trees, all of the natural amenities associated with being in the valley. Consequently, the scale is big, and its taken a long time for MJ’s landscape efforts to “grow” to the appropriate level. But they have.
Ask any Ohio gardener what will happen if you walk away in June and July? “Weeds” could be the one word response. So my little auto mishap couldn’t have came at a more in-opportune time from a gardening and grounds perspective.
Thankfully, brother in law, Norm took on lawn mowing, leaving MJ to battle on with the weeds in the flowerbeds. And battle on she has. Last week she summoned me and the tractor to move a few “weed piles”. Yes, the weed piles were of end-loader bucket scale!
Getting on the tractor used a few muscles I have thought about in awhile. I climbed on and thought I might just roll right off the other side.
In the midst of doing this battle, she some how found the time and energy to plant some additional flowers. This course of action begs the question, in such a challenging time, why would someone plant flowers?
Maybe they are a sign of hope, or may be they are simply an addition of beauty and color in an otherwise grey period of time.
Whatever the case, they are pretty!
So as I sit here in a state where I convince myself that being largely sedentary is the appropriate course of action, I can at least enjoy a new little spot of color.