Weeds

When I said I was thinking of causing someone to plant peony bushes in my yard in Ypsilanti, I didn’t mean to imply that I have a butler. (Alas, not.) Well into his ninth decade, my father always mowed his own grass and shoveled his own snow. When he fell ill, which was in April, 2022, my sister offered to mow, and I think she did do that several times, but with all we were suddenly in charge of, it seemed reasonable to pay someone to do those kinds of things, especially since my sister has her own grass and snow to attend to. 

By the time I found someone to mow the grass, a neighbor had reported us to the city for letting it grow to more than X inches tall. We got a notice saying to take care of it or else the city would come and do it for us. I think they send you a bill if they do that, and they also might mow right over your expensive new little plant, so we addressed it. My father, likely inspired by a really stunning large holly bush that is at the north end of the house, had lately installed another holly bush in the back yard. It was much smaller than he had realized it would be and, after being planted, could barely be seen with the naked eye. We could hardly expect the City of Ypsilanti to spot it.

Four years later, we are still paying to have the lawn mowed, to have the snow and ice cleared, and to have occasional yard work done; the young fellow who does the latter could probably be engaged to plant some peonies.

Today I spent a couple of hours photographing my mother’s artwork, including many portraits of my father, one labeled, “My Hero.” I found a decades-old watercolor of a lamp that was not ten feet from where I was doing the photographing today, another of a piece of furniture which was also in the very same room where I was today, and one of the very chair I was sitting on, or its sibling. I found a drawing of my father’s childhood home and a watercolor of my mother’s college dorm room, with a written explanation on the back of where the pictured things had come from. There were many portraits of us children, and some renderings of cats. My sister took some originals, I others, and we left most of the rest for the estate sale.

My sister spent part of the afternoon sifting through items in the house, in part looking for things that belong to her and also for things she would like to have. After that, she went outside to try to straighten out the sprinkler situation. There is a vast amount of ivy around the house, including some that was well on its way to taking over the front yard. We lately asked the person who does the yard work to tear up a lot of it, rototill, and put down grass seed, which needs watering. My sister found a sprinkler, but the water was spraying out only for about two inches around the sprinkler, so today she investigated what was going on with the various hoses and spigots and sprinklers, and got it working.

I didn’t have an active role in this project, but it didn’t seem right to perch on the couch while others labored outside, so I went outside and did a little weeding, and also got rid of an unsightly expanse of dead brown stalks in the back yard. I weeded! Weeding was the one gardening task entrusted to us—nay, required of us—when we were children. We also were invited to look through the beautiful gardening catalogues and pick out flowers that would be planted in the yard; I remember picking out colors of roses.

It was satisfying to do that bit of yard work today, though, as I observed to my sister, “Oh, I see: Once you start, it’s never ending.” She confirmed that is so.