I’m on vacation. Now, like most American males in a committed relationship, that statement doesn’t imply that I am spending my days away from the courthouse sitting on my tushy reading Tolstoy. OK. I did manage to watch the classic version of Anna Karenina starring Greta Garbo on TCM. But cut me some slack, folks. It was pouring out! And the very next day, as the inclement weather continued making it impossible for me to tackle the chores on my “Honey Do” list, I managed to watch three Dorothy McGuire black and white classics as I cleaned the house. Don’t get too excited, ladies. I’m not as great a catch as that sounds. You see, Rene’ and I’ve had a division of labor for much of our married life. We share the outside chores. Inside the house, I do the vacuuming, dusting, and wash the floors: She does the laundry, the grocery shopping, the bills, and the bathrooms, including the boys’ bathroom on the lower level. Any of you moms reading this who have sons understand what an ugly task that is and that I’m getting off pretty easy in this deal!
Yesterday. After sleeping in a bit (Jack and his buddy Dom and I took in the late showing of The Avengers in 3D Thursday night), I was up. So, to my chagrin, was the sun, meaning I could no longer dodge the work I’d been avoiding. The first task on my list was to replace the netting on the soccer goals in our back lawn. How many kids get to practice their moves overlooking a wild and scenic river, with eagles and osprey wheeling overhead and bluebirds chirping their alarm? Not many I’d guess. Anyway, once I’d cut free the old netting and secured and trimmed the new, it was time to get serious about things that needed doing around the place.
Roses. Oh, I’ll grant you that they’re beautiful to look at. But when you have a bed of perennial roses that hasn’t been attended to, well, the result is a tangled mess of thorns, weeds, and stalks. I took a look at my chore list and decided, with my wife gone to town and the boys still asleep, that I’d tackle the roses. It was a moment, I am convinced, of poor judgment.
“How’s that going?” Rene’ asked when she returned from her errands.
“Not so good.”
I’d been pruning for the better part of an hour and I’d made only a small dent in the easiest part of the rose bed. The thicker, more ornery part of the mess loomed ahead. The sun was high, the deer flies were out, and my arms and legs were a mass of shallow cuts and scrapes from the thorns.
“Thanks for doing this.”
I muttered a reply not suitable for a family blog and plunged on.
I took a break for lunch and, as a diversion, I spent an hour putting in a new dog door so that our outside dogs, Kramer and Daisey, can go in and out of the garage at their leisure. Smarter men would have gone to Home Depot and bought a new utility door with a dog door already installed instead of trying to fit a new dog door in an old aperture. Not me. My effort seemed destined to fail. Rene’ was eager to stop the invectives. But I eventually got the new door installed.
A little bondo, caulk, and paint and it will be as good as new!
In between lunch and going back into the rose thicket, there was a slight disaster. Wind had pulled one of our hummingbird feeders free of the porch ceiling, spilling sticky red liquid all over the front porch. I’d cleaned the mess up on my hands and knees a few days back. Rene’ had refilled the feeder. As I climbed the ladder, feeder in hand and raised it above my head to settle it on a hook, the bottom of the feeder let loose and covered me in red. The words and accusations against my better half again can’t be printed here. But the mess got cleaned up again and, within a half hour, I was back at the roses.
To make this story shorter than its destiny, I finished pruning and weeding and cleaning up around six. I’d spent the entire day (except for the noted diversions) assaulted by thorns.
This place is a lot of work.
I’ve thought that line more than once over the quarter center we’ve lived in the country and the remedy to my post-chore exhaustion is always the same: I climb down stairs leading to the river and, oblivious to the cold, I dive in. The black water of the Cloquet always restores me. Yesterday was no exception.
Later, as Rene’ and I stood on the front lawn talking, the real reward for our work fluttered around a Canadian Lilac planted in Rene’s flower garden.
Swallowtail on Canadian Lilac
The lilac was covered, absolutely inundated, with dozens and dozens of golden yellow swallowtails. I walked over to the tree with my wife and stared in awe at the confusion. Amidst all the gold, there were also a solitary orange monarch and dozens of smaller moths and butterflies and bumble bees lapping nectar.
“Wow!” Rene’s said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I admitted.
A Pair of Yellowtails on Lilacs.
This morning, as I write this piece, a thought occurs to me.
I wonder if the Russian berries are ready yet?
Not too many folks grow Russian berries in this part of the world. They’re the fruit of a bush that’s related to the honeysuckle. The flavor of the berries, somewhere between the sweetness of a blueberry and the tang of a crab apple, is a great accent to cereal. After the bone-tiring toil of yesterday the thought of a few ripe, purple berries on my cornflakes seems a just reward. I stop typing, slip on my sandals, and, still in my jammies, shamble out to our vegetable garden under clear skies and a bright morning sun to check out the berries. I am not disappointed.
Russian Berries Fresh off the Biush
Peace.
Mark
