Preparing for the next phase.

While I have been working on the beast, hubs has been working in another part of our yard on the other side of the house.   What’s left, for or by us both, is two big areas of dirt.  Deciding on what to do in the dirt is my new occupation and distraction.   Hubs looks at me like I’ve grown a tree stump of my own, right on top of my head, when I even mention replanting something, even grass…okay, and maybe some flowers.  And a bush.

      

I get it. It’s backbreaking to remove old, overgrown bushes and trees, their stumps and roots.  I get it.  However, I also get that we can’t just have two big patches of dirt in the yard, waiting for something, most likely undesirable, to fill it in.   That doesn't seem wise, because it will fill in, oh yes, it will fill in.

I also get that it’s not that easy as we are blessed with shade from big oak trees.  Beautiful and stately, although maybe too close to the house, and its tough to grow things.  We are also cursed with maple trees, soft maples with big fat branches that the trunk can’t seem to support, which drop those same limbs, dangerous and carefree.  Trees that have those funny little twirling helicopter seed pods that seem to grow wherever they land.  Problem: maple trees are like weeds, like parasites, and choke out every other living thing there, except maybe poison ivy.

 

I challenged hubs to a contest of sorts last week.  I bet, I said, we could pull out maple trees, at least 10, every day for a month and still have maple saplings and small trees to spare.  He didn't agree. That’s 300 trees! Now, I haven’t gone into the woods every day this week to pull out trees but the evening of this challenge I went into the woods and easily pulled up 25 maple saplings, all under 2 feet tall, from about a 10-foot square area.  Until they are about 30 inches or so tall, maple saplings can be pretty easily removed, thank goodness.Bunched up in two hands and headed for the burning pile, I shook them at hubs as I walked by, victorious and gloating, like pom poms.  Go, me!    

While bending over and yanking out these little maple trees, which I have to admit is hard on the heart, they are baby trees for crying out loud, even if they are weed-like, and it’s against my nature but has to be done, I began to compare clearing out these areas like life, like my life.  Change is afoot, and I am preparing for the next phase.  Careful planning is needed, thoughtfulness, decisiveness and even protection, because it will fill in, oh yes, it will fill in.