A Walker in the Suburbs

At home today, and thinking about windows, especially the kitchen one, situated to give the dishwasher (the human one) a sylvan view. This time of year the view reminds me how much raking there is to do. But usually a glance outside is more calming.

I’ve looked out the kitchen window often in the past 27 years. I’ve see trees grow, age and die; leaves sprout, green and shade. While sudsing plates I’ve seen snow fall, sprinklers shower and kids run, bounce and swing.

The kitchen window faces south, and this time of year the sun is low enough to cast dancing shadows through the glass.

It’s a window on the world, this window is. Or at least my little corner of it.

Overnight, it seems that fall has moved in. A clammy, chillier air,  and the back lawn is scattered with leaves. The mums don’t look so out of place now, and for some reason the climbing rose has produced a bumper crop of rose hips.

What a strange and lovely name, rose hips. I look up the etymology, learn it is a 16th-century alteration of the Middle English “hepe” and the Old English “heope,” meaning seed pod.

Rose hips are invested with all sorts of nutritional properties, have far more Vitamin C than oranges, for instance.

If I had worlds of time, I’d collect the rose fruits and make tea or jelly. The garden has produced nothing else much that’s edible, apart for oregano, mint and thyme.

Instead, I’ll snap a photo and write a post. It’s another way to preserve the goodness of the rose.

The tent is down, and the trampoline is back in its regular spot.  But the net is not yet up around it. Which means that last night’s bounce was not only in the gloaming but also in the open.

I know the net that surrounds the trampoline is window-dressing at best. It won’t stop a hard roll or an errant flip.

But I’m the tamest of trampers. I bounce up and down, up and down. I might do a little air conducting if Brahms or Mozart has me by the collar, but otherwise I’m a cautious bouncer.

Still, I felt a bit daring last night as I jumped for 20 minutes without a net. Not quite ready for the circus yet, but liberated just the same.

(Illustration: Wikipedia)

One of my tasks today is to be a poison ivy spotter. Not a poison ivy eradicator; I’m too allergic to the stuff. But I do have an eye for it. I can spot it glistening in the myrtle or spreading beneath a sea of stilt grass.

Poison ivy vines are another matter. They hide everywhere, including underground, and it’s hard to imagine complete eradication. Still, I’m all for trying.

So I’ve spent a lot of time this morning bending and crouching, looking for three leaves rather than the five, seeing the poison plant as a shark underwater, the spiky leaves the fish’s fearsome teeth.

Today the wood chips were unloaded. Tomorrow they will be spread and smoothed. There will also be touch-up painting, massive cleaning, planting, you name it.

I just moved my shell collection, a row of whelks atop the deck railing. People may want to set their drinks on the deck railing — although, now that I look at it, the deck railing is warped. Another item for the to-do list, the endless wedding to-do list.

Back in the winter a backyard wedding seemed a lovely idea. The yard was in pretty good shape, I told myself.  (Of course, it was hidden under two feet of snow.) We would just have to take down a few dead trees, be liberal with the mulch and a bit more attentive to the garden and — voila! — instant venue.

Now the wedding is two weeks away and the instant venue is looking pretty shabby. This despite countless hours of yard work, poison ivy eradication, weed-pulling and garden spraying.

One thing I know from meeting countless work and home deadlines, though, is that it will be ready. Somehow, some way, it will cease to be a backyard and become … a venue.

As part of the backyard beautification project, there is new grass coming up in a spot once covered by gangly forsythia bushes. This should not be a surprise since the area was seeded twice, but it’s remarkable to me.

That soil used to pushing up weeds is actually producing grass is not just miraculous but also slightly funny. The grass looks like the interloper.

Years ago a neighbor killed his entire lawn with Roundup and started over. At the time I thought this was excessive, a typical example of suburban overkill (pardon the pun).

Now I think he may have been onto something.

Whether this is due to lawn change, my change or climate change is anybody’s guess. But one thing is certain. Soon that grassy section will be full of weeds like the rest of the lawn. It’s only a matter of time.

(Copper at play on the weedy lawn.)