Springing Into The Yard

I didn’t get any farther out into Elgin this weekend than my own back yard. After the warm week behind us, the weeds took advantage of the sun and rain and had already gotten a head start on the flowers and the Scott’s Patchmaster we used to repair the damage from the grubs last summer.

A journey around my property this spring revealed that my yard is very much on the move. A blackberry bush planted last year is 2 inches farther from the fence than I know I planted it. I am seeing evidence of soil moving from the high side of the yard to the lower side. This would explain the pile of flagstone we have been unearthing for 2 years, some of it buried 4 to 6 inches below the ground. At one point in time, there must have been a flagstone path through some former homeowner’s garden. Like an archeological dig, our yard has turned up brick, flagstone, field stone, a small figurine of Wolverine from Xmen and a lump of something we excitedly thought was a meteorite, but turned out to be a lump of slag with some coal attached to it. We also unearthed a lump of coal.

I saw 3 fat squirrels vying for ownership of our maple tree and “Pip” our chipmunk has been stealing runs from his hole to the neighbors birdfeeder, returning with cheeks stuffed to stock his underground pantry. I heard woodpeckers pecking and cardinal’s chew chew chewing and saw wrens busily and noisily picking out the best piece of real estate in the yard.

Spring is here and I delight in cleaning up and clearing out my yard and am reminded once again as I achingly climb the stairs to bed, that there are muscles in the butt that only get used when gardening.