Before the Flowers Arrive


Yesterday evening, we got a knock on the door around 7PM. It ended up being Carol Jean, a neighbor of ours from two doors down. She was just stopping by, and chatted with us a bit about our backyard (she had heard we were going to get some work done, and was just curious).

Recently, Carol Jean was out planting a ton of flowers along the Southern part of her yard. This border is shared by our neighbor (the Mines), and our yard is of course shared. Since the backyard has really been left unattended for so long – the weeds tend to creep over into Carol Jean’s yard.

We assured her that there was indeed a plan for the backyard (which she had heard about from the neighbors). It’s a few weeks away, but everyone’s quite excited – as the recent rainfall and warmer weather has really turned things up a notch back there.

We learned that Carol Jean bought a lot of flowers recently, and she’s been working hard to preserve them. We talked a lot about the area, and how wild rabbits are likely eating a lot of things (not sure if she knows we have two domesticated rabbits).

One thing she told me really stuck with me. It was just out of the blue, and it was the nonchalant way she said it. She mentioned that she had spent a lot of money on some prairie flowers. And she chose the flowers over the seeds, because they sometimes take a while to flower (1-2 years).

And she said something like “I might not be around for that.” And so she chose to go with flowers, over seed. The casualness of the message, as well as her delivery, is what stuck with me.

I thought how, with our yard… our plants seem to be growing at such an accelerated rate. Faster than we can manage. And on the other side of the fence, for Carol Jean, her plants were growing slower than she wanted.

While we were on the porch, we talked about our summer – and how graduations and marriages seem to all come around this time of year. When our backyard is clear and clean and done, I look forward to inviting all of our neighbors over. It will be nice, one day soon, when we can all relax after a busy day and just slow down, and enjoy our time together.

[CC photo via Amanda Slater]

Related:
First Home, First Day
Backyard Sunday
Backyard Plans

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