The Nature Strip

I have a computer folder labeled “Working on Drafts and Ideas.” But in reality the files within it are mostly a collection of random paragraphs that I’d hoped to build into full blog posts. When nothing much is going on in my life I might look through some of those files hoping I can incorporate one of those topic sparks into a 900 to 1,000 word essay. Too often than not I’ll find those ideas have or will expire soon like the following paragraph if I don't use it before I move:

“Three guys showed up this week to cut down a dead Scotch pine in my nature strip. Good looking and tan guys, not an ounce of fat on their beautiful bodies. (I might be old but I still enjoy eye candy.) I thought the tree was about hundred foot tall but the internet says they usually grow to sixty foot. Still, it was tall enough to come crashing through my bedroom in a storm, so I’m glad it’s gone. You should have seen one of the guy’s shimmy his way up to top of that tree to tie a rope around it. He had monkey-like skills. They took that tree down in four sections, ground it up into wood chips, cleaned up some dead vines along my tree line and were out of here in less than an hour. There goes $450 but it’s a bargain price compared to what I’d pay it if fell on the house and I had to have the roof, master bath and bedroom rebuilt.”

That was two summers ago and it truly was a bargain compared to what I just shelled out to have the vegetation in another part of the nature strip behind my house cut down. I have it done every 3-4 years when it starts encroaching on the yard, looking like something out of a horror film where voices whisper across the red sumac luring virgins within. At least I've been safe on that score, having given my virginity away at 25. (Don't judge. It might have been the '60s but I was old school saving it for marriage. Oops, I didn't make it.) This time it was two guys who showed up to work---boys really, in their twenties---skinny no-butt kids with long hair tied back in high ponytails and iPod buds jammed their ears. Eye candy, no way! If it wasn’t for the fact that they were being paid $500 for the task I would have put on my grandmotherly hat and baked them cookies to serve with milk. The price quote was a hundred more than I paid the last time this clear-cut was done but that last time the outfit that did the work they left too much of the sumac behind and it took them forever and four days of off-and-on work. The skinny-butt crew had it done in two hours!

This past month I’ve been running into all kinds of things that I’ll---hopefully---never have to do again like the nature strip maintenance and getting the trim painted on the outside doors. I also spent an afternoon trimming the shrubs and cutting down perennials, reveling in the fact that I should be out of this house by the time it needs doing again. And here is where I need to look skyward and apologize to my sister-in-law who, several years before she died, told me she was ready to go into a nursing home because dealing with her grass in the summer and snow in the winter was getting too much for her. I was shocked that anyone would willing want to go into a nursing home. “All you do,” I said, “is make two phone calls and write two checks! How hard can that be?” Color me with egg on my face because I’m finding myself often replaying that conversation in my head and I'm not looking like the brightest bulb in the box. Keeping up with service people---finding the good ones, having the bad ones let you down---is more than just making a couple of phone calls and writing out the payment checks.

Another file in my folder of ideas that will expire if I don’t use it before I move also involves the nature strip behind my house. There is a six by twenty foot patch back there covering with wild black berries and this is what I wrote a few summers ago: “I don’t give the wild black berries much thought except when I see the guy who works for my lawn care service picking some (with my permission). They’ve just ripened up and this week I saw something laugh-out-loud funny going on. A young squirrel was jumping up to the top of the raspberry bushes to get at the berries. The branches couldn’t support his weight so he’d ride them down to the ground, eat a few berries then jump up to retrieve another branch. At the same time a cardinal was after the same batch of berries and he was none too happy about the squirrel giving him competition.”

My nature strip does support a lot of wildlife and I will miss it after I move. It runs across the backs of all the lots in my block, ending with a lake at one end. My section of the nature strip is 175 long and varies in width with the widest part in the photo up above. Neighbors on both sides have all trees in their sections while three quarters of mine is more field-like to support birds, bees and butterflies. I’ve seen every kind of birds back there including those big enough to hunt and carry off rabbits. (It's gross but I've seen it happen.) I’ve seen possums, skunk, badgers, raccoons, rabbits, one snake and a couple house cats who seem to think the area is one big litter box and I don’t care because they also like to hunt mice.

I did it! I took a couple files from my “Working on Drafts and Ideas” folder and was able to weave them together with some current stuff going on in my life to come up with this post. Somewhere out there in the ether of writing instructors and coaches is one giving me a red ink grade for my effort. © 

 Every time I get fresh flowers from the supermarket I save the heads and throw them out in the nature strip in the fall. I never know what will survive but it's always colorful back there from year to year, from month to month. No matter what, I can always count on tiger lilies and queen Anne's lace. The first photo is early spring, the other photos are mid and late summer.