Summertime

The following column originally ran in the June 2, 2005 edition of the Daily Mail.

Summertime and the living is easy. This favorite tune from Porgy and Bess keeps popping into my mind as I look out my window at the abundant grass that needs mowing, the sprouting trees that need to be clipped off and the cluttered sidewalks and decks that summertime ease has created. Nothing is more relaxing than to go to the deck with a cold drink (Dr. Pepper, of course!) and gaze over the lush foliage surrounding the pond and the lawn. I remember back to the day we moved onto this acreage — to a different house — and saw only two old cedars, a broken down peach tree remnant of a one-time orchard, and plowed cropland up near the house. It was part of the family farm that had been acquired in later years and still had a residence on it.

We rented from my parents for awhile before taking the plunge to buy the land. On our youngest son’s first birthday we celebrated by planting hundreds of trees from the Conservation Agency. Unfortunately some of those plantings were the, then, highly touted multiflora rose plants.

Lester had a pond constructed with a water system to the house to avoid the very hard well water. (The water was so hard that when we had it tested we were told that if it was any harder the cows would have to chew it to get a drink!) This was in 1957. It doesn’t seem that long ago until we realize that that son’s youngest son just graduated from high school this year and we look at the results of our tree planting.

The one big oak we planted on the north side of the pond has a large family of small, medium sized and large oaks to keep it company.

The row of ash trees we planted on the east side of the pond have multiplied and spread, the windbreak we planted north of what was then our house grew and was later destroyed as houses changed hands when Lester went into the ministry and we had to move.

Tastes changed.

We kept the land through all the changes and when we knew that we would retire back to this acreage, we began the process of making a new home site on the north side of the pond. That is where I now can sit, relax and look at the wonders a few years have brought to our land.

The water system is no longer needed due to the rural water program, which lets us have running water piped to our home.

The multiflora rose is gradually being eradicated but pops up again to let us know we haven’t won yet. The weeping willow we planted is dying of old age, and the grass in our lawn lets us know that this was once a Fescue pasture.

We don’t try to garden since we are gone so often in the summer, but even the bushes and flowers need more care than we can give them.

Summertime isn’t so easy unless you put on blinders to all the work that needs to be done. But that is one of the benefits of being middle age plus.

If your eyesight is still good enough to see the needed work, then perhaps you have a bad back, are short of breath or have allergies to the greenery.

In that case, you can sit and relax, mentally clip off a twig here or there, and hope that someday soon one of the grown-up kids will come by and take pity on you.

We have all the tools they would need and they can be sure that they haven’ t been over-used lately.

I’ll even bring them a cold drink and sit with them on their rest breaks.

That is when summertime living is easy!