I think it's safe to say that since we closed on Denton, if dad wasn't in the field and if mom wasn't mowing any of the other 5 farms, they've been out there working on the yard. At first, it was just cleaning up limbs--so that she could run the mower, but quickly, the green showed up on the leaves and in the flower beds.
Mom loves to trim too, so she was cutting away strangled roses and shrubs while we all helped identify buds and things starting to show life from the debris.
Dad helped me rake and rake and rake on several occasions, making and burning piles to clear the grass of all the years of dead, heavy leaves, trapping the grass. We think it'll still need a little shady seed--but it was almost as if the ground could finally breathe.
The smell of his cigar wafted over the back yard while we all worked--and made a convenient brush pile starter as he finished.
Lucky for us, we like the bonfire thing and all the scrap brush--this stuff goes up like a --well, a bonfire, as soon as you get a match to it. We just kept piling it on and on. We learned after the first bonfire that even a giant pile of brush is reduced to ash in just minutes.
This was one of the leaf piles--there is a slight charred spot on the yard, but I think I read somewhere that ash is actually good for composting and for growing things. Note to self, I need to look into that. We have A LOT of ash.
At the end of the day though, or even a few hours, you can look around at all the smoking leaf piles and you get a sense of accomplishment. A few more sticks we won't trip over for now--a few more feet of cleared yard for the girls to play. We'll get there. I think it's safe to say we'll always have a burn pile--lots of trees and leaves always falling, but I don't mind it in the least.
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