(Sunday Paper, Year VI, Issue 13)

It really felt like we turned a weather corner this week.

I’ve seen snow in April before, and some miserably cold April days….but this week was so warm and pleasant I’m only thinking positive, warm thoughts about the months ahead.

Putting the winter coat away was one of the highlights of the week - I’m not going back to it.

We grilled out a couple of times this week.

But perhaps the most exciting thing about this week was the fact that I was able to get the yard work started.

It’s hard to think about slow progress.

With something like the yard I want to get everything done at once and sit back and enjoy it all through the summer.

But the reality is it’s slow and incremental - do a little bit now, a little bit later…and then before you know it everything is covered in snow and you spend a few months thinking of all the things you can do when the weather warms up again.

And here we are.

I wrote this post, two years ago now, about the possibilities I was envisioning for the backyard space after we made some changes back there.

I did a couple of things that summer, but it wasn’t until that fall and then last spring that I really came up with a plan and moved things around and made a bunch of progress.

And last spring I don’t think I got this early a jump on it.

So it’s exciting that before the end of March I’ve taken big strides in some of the annoying work that I need to do before I can get to some of the more aesthetically pleasing stuff. (Making the grass nicer, perhaps getting new outdoor furniture, that kind of thing.)

As I was writing this post the city announced next week it will open the yard waste site, so I can bring everything I gathered throughout the week there next week.

As you can see in the picture above, I’ve tried to trim down some of the big trees that hang over the house…and I’ll need to dump those branches that I’ve cut down as well. (The picture to the right shows what it looks like from below.)

Speaking of branches - you may remember there was a huge branch that was downed in the early fall that I couldn’t get rid of because it was too big - I finally got around to chopping that into smaller, disposable bits.

Other things are certain to pop up here and there, and I’ll get to those in time.

Because that’s the thing - there’s plenty of time to get the yard in shape.

Sometimes I feel like I’m scrambling in the hot weather over Memorial Day weekend to get around-the-yard projects done.

This year it might just work out that by Memorial Day weekend I can spend some time enjoying the fruits of my labors.

Notes

*A few years ago they built a new Urgent Care facility near here and I had never been to one of those before so I didn’t quite understand what it was. Went there on Friday. It’s very, very nice.

*At one point I toyed with the idea of a D-I-Y patio in the space we created in the yard that I alluded to in one of those links above. I talked to a guy at a home improvement store and he made it sound like no big deal and I borrowed a how-to book from the library and looked into it and it seemed like a little more than I was willing to do at the time. Then last week one of our neighbors (you remember!) had a patio done and I watched it happen professionally and there’s no way I could have done it. So I’m glad I didn’t pursue it. It still might be something we think about in the future but 1) maybe not because we can just use the one across the street and 2) I am happy enough with the layout back there.

You can’t really see it but my name is on the screen there. I felt like a star! The star of Urgent Care.

*Oh, yeah, you’re probably wondering about the Urgent Care thing. It’s nothing bad. I bumped the top of my head on a tree branch and it didn’t stop bleeding for a while. Kathy seemed worried, and I couldn’t see it (you know, because it was on the top of my head), so I treated it like no big deal. But she took a picture of it to show me and it was gross so I was spurred to go. They said it would be fine but they glued it to help it seal. Nothing to worry about.

*I have completely lost interest in the NCAA Tournament, but that’s not a bad thing because I have Opening Day right around the corner. My other strategy for getting me through the off-season completed this week too - I finished the final season of ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ It was great. I think I’ll watch it through again soon, this time with Kathy.

*Speaking of Opening Day, I have what I think is a good idea for a fun picture for #EveryWeekOnWednesday this week. You can see it at the Facebook page, which you can like here. You can also follow me on Twitter here - I’ll probably end up posting it there too.

*The funny thing about the head gash (or whatever you want to call it) is that I was very aware and alert not to have a branch fall on me when I cut them down from the high trees. But then as I was picking up and clearing what I had cut down is when I bumped my head on a low branch, still attached to the tree. It’s a riot, actually.