There was no school last Friday in Milton. It was a
gorgeous fall day with bright sunshine yet cool enough for a sweatshirt or
jacket without being cold. I am guessing that most of you have the same
plethora of fall / winterization chores that Sue and I do. We have a wide variety and plenty of them.
Those who know me acknowledge that I am an early riser. This habit (idiosyncrasy)
is both a blessing and a curse. It has
enough meat to be fodder for a blog all on its own so I will not discuss it
further on this post. Even though I was
well into the chores at an early hour I looked at my watch and invoked a saying
that I heard, Mabel (my mom), utter often when she was “encouraging” me and my
three siblings to complete our chores. She would say, “the day is fast going
away”. Again, this could be a separate
blog topic but what she meant was, “get your act in gear”. As I realized how much of the day had already
gone by and how much time remained before dark, I grudgingly acknowledged that
I would not accomplish as much this day as I had planned. About that time,
maybe 11 or so, an awesome work crew arrived to “earn some money”. This gang of four Rising Red Hawks are not
only great cyclists, good students, and awesome musicians but also good yard
workers. Middle Schooler, Ivan, assumed
the role of yard foreman directing the efforts of Northsiders, Gus & TJ, along
with Milton Wester, Emmit.
Ivan & TJ manned the leaf blower & rakes. They
totally cleared the lawn of leaves and other detritus. The front yard leaves were escorted to the
street for city pick-up while the leaves on the much larger lawn in back were
carried in old sheets to our woods behind the house. From personal experience I can assert that
this is a job that requires significant physical effort. These two stuck at it until it was done.
Check out their picture below.
One of Gus’ and Emmit’s tasks was bird feeder
filling. They accomplished this with
dispatch. It wasn’t until late in the
day when I was putting tools away and closing things up for the night that I
noticed there was an unusually large number of birds around as well as
squirrels and chipmunks. Opportunists
that they are, they realized that there was a smorgasbord of sunflower &
safflower seed on the ground that hadn’t quite made it into the feeders. Oh,
well, so what if quality control was a tad off?
I wanted the creatures to have the food anyway and the boys felt very
useful.
Then Gus & Emmit were assigned to helping me cut
back the hostas and cart the trimmings to the compost pile. This job is low to the ground and involves
using clipping shears/pruners. It is
also a two handed project and can get old in a hurry. These two did well with this but I could see
their interest and strength waning. So I
reassigned them to man a couple of wheelbarrows and they became the truckers of
the sheared stems and leaves. We completed maybe half of what seems like about
a million hostas – a good start.
Earlier in the day I had tried to ignite the
leaf/brush/whatever pile. I had a bit of success but was producing mostly
smoke. Of course this anemic fire
required various pokes and prods from the gang of four.
As the afternoon moved along, the bikes appeared and
began to whiz past heading to the trail in the woods. That seemed like it might
be more fun than the hosta clipping I was doing. Then a whiffle ball game ensued with a
variety of rules that seemed to change depending on who was at bat or which
team was ahead. I was still in the
hostas dodging occasional errant hits.
Of course there were many trips to the house for
sustenance. I think they devoured enough food, snacks, and drinks for 10 times
their number.
Near the end of the afternoon, Ivan & TJ built a
small fire in the middle of their bike trail in the woods and roasted
marshmallows. They were joined by Gus and Emmit. Ah, the rewards of good labor & play - a
day well spent.
It was a good day. I scratched many things from my
list – windows washed, storm windows up, screens stowed, hostas trimmed, some
burning accomplished, snow blower moved from the back shed to the garage (you
know what’s coming), and the opportunity to shell out wages. As I reflect on
last Friday I can only say, “What a gift God has given me!” Four grandsons (2
sets of cousins) who want to be at my house helping and playing with me and
each other on a day off school. The yard
reverberated with their calls to each other, their laughter, their pure joy in
being outside with good buddies and having fun.
Life is, indeed, good.
Here you see Ivan and TJ with their rakes and leaf
blower, Gus with his wheelbarrow, and Emmit with a fist full of hosta clippings.
