November 18, 2009

• Raking leaves

  Raking leaves might sound like a chore, but it’s something I secretly
  love to do. Like all yard work, it’s a way of interacting with your
  very own little piece of nature. A kind of dialogue, if you’re
  imaginative and your heart yearns toward outdoor things. A conversation
  that involves trees and squirrels and breezes and watching the clouds
  while you’re working.
  
  Last week’s weather, you remember, was sunny and warm and October-like
  — and it was hard for everybody who loves the outdoors to have to stay
  inside of four walls during the short daylight hours.
  
  The weekend weather was an Indian summer gift, so I grabbed the chance
  to get outside as soon as I could. Doyle was tied down doing teaching
  chores, but I enlisted Hagrid, our Great Dane, to be my yard-work
  companion. Wearing my favorite baggy hiking pants and comfortable
  boots, I headed outside, with Hagrid racing in happy circles. I grabbed
  my gloves and rake and clippers, and got to work.
  
  There’s just something soothing about raking leaves, to me, because it
  means being outside in the healing fresh air and sunshine.
  
  Raking, like mowing, is satisfying because you can see that what you’re
  doing is making a difference. When all the maple leaves were freshly
  fallen, three weeks ago or so, our front yard looked like it was awash
  in gold, but last weekend, the yard just looked dreary and unkempt,
  with a tattered coat of ragged brown leaves that had seen better days.
  As I raked, the uncovered grass looked fresh and green, in its last
  spurt of growth before the inevitable freeze finally browns it for the
  winter.
  
  Raking is a way of making friends with every nook and cranny of your
  yard. When you rake, you discover every low place and every slight
  slope, every new volunteer privet bush, every dandelion. I had to turn
  my rake sideways to scrape dried leaves out of their snug little
  crevices between the roots of big trees, like the elm that towers next
  to the driveway and the regal maple that presides over the front yard.
  I raked leaves out from their hiding places under the spireas next to
  the alley, and brushed them off the tops of the yews in the front beds.
  My rake snagged in Virginia creeper around the trunk of the elm tree,
  and in the lowest branches of the forsythia. I raked around the baby
  azaleas I planted last winter, my first gardener’s mark on Squirrels’
  Leap, and around my confetti lantana, still blooming at almost
  Thanksgiving.
  
  I raked elm leaves from around the dying hostas, and gently nudged them
  from the pansies that border the walkway to the side door. I raked dead
  leaves from the base of the yellow climbing roses and fading hyacinth
  bean vines we planted to grow up the pergola — the one that Doyle
  rebuilt after it was smashed during January’s ice storm — and from
  around the still-green native fern that’s nestled next to
  lipstick-colored impatiens, still valiantly blooming their pretty
  little heads off.
  
  Our first year at Squirrels’ Leap has come full circle. It was almost
  exactly a year ago that we first looked at the house, when the
  neglected yard was covered in dead leaves, and overgrown vines tangled
  in scraggly bare shrubs. As we walked around the property then, we
  discovered the naked rose by the driveway, and spotted the
  winter-stripped forsythias — and wished for azaleas. We imagined what
  the stark maples would look like in October, and dreamed of an April
  bride’s dress on our very own dogwood tree.
  
  Over this last year, we’ve begun making our yard our own. I’ve trimmed
  and cleaned up and pulled vines and raked and pruned, trying to bring
  out the best in the pretty growing things that somebody else planted
  with love in this yard years ago.
  
  And Doyle and I have made our own mark already. There are azaleas at
  Squirrels’ Leap now — because this Mississippi girl had to have
  azaleas. And on the north side of the house, the row of hydrangeas I
  had dreamed of  — like so many pretty old homes back home have — has
  been planted and lovingly tended since last spring, and those big old
  purply-blue and pink blossoms delighted us all summer, and can still be
  found, dried, in pitchers and bowls all over our house.
  
  We’ve had our sweet Dogwood April, and our longed-for Maple October at Squirrels’ Leap. And they were good.
  
  I enjoyed raking leaves. It was good to visit with my plants, to tuck
  pine needles around the little azaleas, to watch the fat squirrels jump
  from tree to tree, and to laugh at Hagrid plopping his big self down in
  the piles of leaves like a little kid, grinning his happy doggy grin.
  
  Simple outdoor pleasures. Soul-soothers.

  By Celia DeWoody
  Published Nov. 18, 2009, Harrison (Ark.) Daily Times
  Copyright 2009 Neighbor Newspapers, Inc.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  • 9:51 pm
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