This post was inspired by wahooliteracyteacher. I took some liberty to change the location of focus from the four corners of her classroom to the four corners of our backyard.
I sit on the L shaped corner sectional on the patio. I love this patio. We saved for five years after moving in to pay for this patio, using the failing deck until we were ready. Part of the reason I love it is because it’s exactly as we wanted - something that we planned, not inherited. A patio that can house everything, stay organized, require minimal upkeep, and allows us to step right out onto the grass. As I sit on the patio, my back to the house, I enjoy the view. Front Left There’s the shed, painted beige and grey to match the now absent deck. It holds everything our two garage can’t. It’s still jam packed from the winter - things stacked to the ceiling, packed backwards so the things we’ll need first in spring are accessible. But once backyard spring cleaning and full patio set-up happens, it feels huge, containing some gardening supplies, the lawn mower, and the boys' quads. My mom has long joked that when she retires and runs out of money, she’ll run electricity and heat out there and have a one-woman sanctuary. The shed is where the chipmunks live (we think). Seven years in, we’ve chosen to accept them as part of our lives, and we enjoy watching them scamper through the yard. (There’s only two, which is likely why we are apt to let them roam freely.) Behind the shed runs a twenty-five foot flower bed. When we first moved in, it took a full week to tame the overgrowth. Now it’s home to orange day lilies that are our first signs of spring. Front Right A dark, dirt circle and the climber. After the pandemic, we bought a small 10 foot in diameter pool. My husband agreed to kill a circular area of his well-manicured lawn in exchange for fun with our little kids. It has been one of the best decisions we’ve made as parents. The climber we inherited. It has been a place of learning how to climb ladder rungs and slide, fighting off pirate ships, snowball fights (and building amazing forts below, and games my adult mind couldn’t even begin to grasp. This too we have changed, extending one side out to add multiple swings in a row and make it stronger. It needs to be power washed and restrained, but this too is just how we would have wanted it. Back Left The area of the yard which has changed the most, it now hosts: a sit wall which curves around the air conditioning unit, our patio table and chairs, a planned grill space, and paired down flower beds that host flowers I can neither kill nor need to tend to. Our newest addition has been the bird feeders - one squirrel proof feeder, one finch feeder, and one cylinder feeder. The past two years, these have added to some of my favorite memories of my kids. They love keeping an eye at who is visiting, from finches to cardinals, pesky grackles to wrens, mourning doves to sparrows. Our most coveted visitors are the woodpeckers and nuthatches. Back Right And then there’s the most functional part of the yard. There’s the gate that gives us access to the back yard, the rain barrel that waters the garden and keeps our water bill down, the yard waste bins, the moveable fire pit, the hose reel, and the toy chest. They sit tucked along the house, partially hidden by a row of grasses that were supposed to be 5-6 feet tall, but have only seemed to hit 3 feet each year.
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AuthorHeidi. Archives
March 2022
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