Today I worked out in the yard. I have been working in the yard a lot lately. As some of you know I am living in my parents old house trying to fix it up for selling. And as I have learned on HGTV (hello Monica), it's all about the "Curb Appeal".
The front yard was a horror and completely grown over. For almost 2 years it has been completely neglected. If Betty could see it she would die (again). Betty was an avid gardener. When she retired she went full-stop with 2 hobbies - quilt making and gardening. She came about it naturally. Her father was a farmer and planted many of the trees on our property 50 years ago. We always had a vegetable garden and Betty loved flowers. Betty was not only a gardener, she was a prize winning gardener. She won "yard of the month" and was in the Dallas Morning News twice. Once for her "yard art" and she won "honorable mention" (or as she would say "I was honorably mentioned") for another contest. Just about every inch of dirt had something planted in it. And if she could put an Iris bed somewhere, she would.
Tackling the yard is not my favorite thing. I did not inherit Betty's love for tilling the soil. I love flowers but I want someone else to grow them. And most of you know that manual labor is not my forte. I do "pretty", I don't dig and haul. But because I am poor I have to do the work myself and as Betty would say, "no one helps me out around here!". The job started with clean up. 46 bags of leaves later, I was ready to actually "work" in the yard. I dug up a big overgrown flower bed and put in red bark mulch . I've pruned trees and bushes. I've added bricks to the sidewalk to stave off the dirt from the bare spots in the yard. My brother (yes, Betty had another son) actually helped and planted some new sod for the bald spots (baldness is a family trait) from 2 years of leaves destroying the grass. I have also added mulch around the old trees for a "clean professional look".
Which leads me to today. Today I dug up a random Iris bed that Betty had planted in the front yard. I've been putting it off. I knew I needed to dig it up, but I kept delaying it. And today I realized why. As I was digging I couldn't help but think about Betty. Irises were her signature flower. Some of the bulbs on our property are extremely old and came from her old home place where she grew up. I felt really bad because I know that I destroyed some of them. I thought- should I replant them? Where? Should I give them away? And then I looked around at the hundreds and hundreds of Iris bulbs around this house and I said to myself, "screw it!". And then I threw them in a trash bag and put them in the garbage. And then I took them out. But then I put them back.
Betty, I am sorry, but we're cleaning up and moving on. You never threw anything away, but we've got to. You were very practical and I am sure you understand.
And with that, Betty would say: "I know it's a lot work". And then she would tell me that she is sure that the neighbors think we are lazy for having such a nasty yard. "Their gonna think you are trash!"
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