Spring Cleaning The Yard

Because of the beautiful early spring here in Maryland, I spent the better part of my weekend beginning to get the yard into beautiful shape. If you know me, you know that I have a brown thumb...make it a withered dried brown thumb that is crumbling from lack of water or sunlight or care. But I tried all the same because it is a crime how badly we have let this yard fall into a disarray of dead foliage and choking vines.

When we brought our house years ago, we had no idea what we were getting into. The people who owned the house before the people who sold it to us were a retired couple with plenty of time for planting, and planting they did. The result were these pristine flower beds of azaleas and a rhododendron bush and daffodils and a bunch of other very, very pretty flowers I don't know by name. Things grew the spring following our September buy...pretty things...fragrant things...it was like we had bought a rainbow.

But pretty things need care, and with 3 children and a job, care always seems to be the thing I cannot give. Then, the vines start up, choking off pine trees and flowers and whatever else. If I am not vigilant, I sometimes lose plants before it's time for their leaves to fall or their flowers to wilt.

So, this year, I decided, I would start early, since Mother Nature skipped winter and went straight to gorgeous weather. And so, I have been cutting and trimming and de-vining everything I can. I've already gone through an entire set of those paper yard bags and I am not anywhere near complete. I'm spring cleaning the yard.

And that is very cathartic. I sometimes wish I could spring clean my life, throwing away viney problems threatening to choke the pretty stuff in my life like I've thrown away the massive poundage of vines this weekend. I let these "vines" grow too long sometimes. Sometimes, I start to tear away their grip but then I get lax and they take hold again. Like the vines that grow up each year in my flower bed (despite the small fortune I have put into weed killer), the vines in my life seems to come back when I am not watching. Yet, the pretty things are there too, sometimes a little choked, but they always come back as well, flowering like they were never touched and full of promise.