Lawns, Gardens and Driveways

Today is a beautiful, sunshiney kind of day! Growing up Landen and I lived for these kind of days…I think even after we became grown ups we lived for these days! I have the day off today and have spent much of the day catching up on a few things but I have had the rare opportunity to work in my tiny garden out back and sit on my front step reading and writing.
Several things come to mind:
First of all, every summer in between age 8 and 15(for me) Landen and I put together our own little flower bed to care for throughout the summer. As we grew older we were given the assignment to care for Mom and Dad’s. Landen cut the lawn and I took care of the flower beds. I cut the lawn only once but apparently I did not do so well because Dad said that we should just stick to Landen cutting the lawn.
Dad was always concocting some sort of strategy on how Landen should cut the lawn. Criss Cross, diagonal, up and down…this was all discussed at the dinner table from spring until fall. There was always some logic behind the plan. It was either to thicken the grass or to make the lawn look neater or something of the sort. Anyway, Landen concocted some of his own plans. One time Landen cut an “N” in the middle of the lawn to stand for Nebraska. I guess he thought we would show a little team spirit? Dad said that it was neat but Landen needed to go ahead and cut the entire lawn. Another time Landen thought it would be wise to put the lawn mower on the lowest cutting level so that he wouldn’t have to cut grass for a while…the grass was cut quite short and burned and Dad was not pleased.
Almost every house we lived in growing up had a row of rhubarb in the backyard. For those of you who do not know what rhubarb may be it is characterized as a tart fruit that many times is baked into desserts mixed with strawberries. They are green steams with leafy heads. You tear off the red casing around the stem, wash and enjoy. Landen and I enjoyed just eating this delicious, tart treat in the back yard. Many times Landen had a salt shaker or sugar bowl to take the tartness away but most of the time we ate the rhubarb just the way it was. We would either pretend we were running away (inspired by the Boxcar Children and On Our Own) or lost (inspired by Hatchet and or just being adventurous) and living off the land. Sometimes we would just find a spot to sit and chat while enjoying the tart treat. It hardly seems like summer without a bit of rhubarb.
Once we lived in a house with mulberry bushes. Needlesstosay, many summer dinners were spoiled between feasting off the mulberry bushes and rhubarb in the back yard!
The driveway to our house from age 8 to 15 had quite a steep incline. Landen and I would set the our Radio Flyer Red Wagon at the top, load up, look for cars, push off and rolldown the driveway into the street…then rush the wagon back to the top of the driveway and replay again and again. When my mother discovered what we were doing she was horrified and expressed her great concern. We could not see the danger in rolling down the driveway in our little Radio Flyer Red Wagon….afterall we had looked for cars!
Our little wagon also served as our tram when we played Silver Dollar City with William, Tricha, Stephen and Shane. We would attach the wagon to the back of one of our bikes with a jump rope, load the wagon with passengers and trail throughout the neighborhood as though we were taking our passengers to our favorite Amusement Park.
Some days spark more thoughts than others…I guess this is one of those days…Many more thoughts are trickling through my mind but I shall save them to share for yet another day.