Summer in the Backyard

It is a Monday morning declaring that winter had retreated. Spring has claimed the territory. The blue iris points to the sky. Here and there a splash of fuschia geranium, yellow lantana, and lavender. The scent of ripening peach and plum mingled in the air like a blend of sweet tea. The leaves of everything are verdant and luscious. But the weeds, always defiant, have returned, and the shrubs scream for trimming.

Wearing a wide-brimmed hat, I step into my outdoor gym: backyard.

I squat and pull, reach and cut, bend and gather, walk and carry, stand and lift, drag and push. Over and over, until my face is wet with sweat, and the corners of my mouth tastes salt, and my right thumb and pointer fingers protrude out of the vinyl gloves that kept thorns and thistles from my hands.

After six hours, the big green bin provided by the city for green waste is teeming with unwanted greens. Severed from their green source, these twigs, branches, and weeds will brown. It will be collected next Monday by the trash company from my street and dumped into a reservoir of dead green waste somewhere off city limits that nobody sees.

I gather my tools and place the spade and rake leaning against the shed. Beside them stands a small bin for the hand shovel, pruning shears, clipper, and a serrated knife. (I use it as a saw sometimes). Empty pots sit on the other out-side of the shed, adjacent to the persimmon tree.