Gardens...

Brent and I sat outside on the front porch this morning and drank our coffee. Usually we sit out back but our lovely rainbow chairs don't get a lot of use so this morning we used them. 

The front garden is much tamer than the backyard. Because the HOA is uptight about such things. I mean there is grass, which I would never have if it were my choice, and tidy shrubbery. A couple of hanging baskets and my rebellion Morning Glories that Brent is pretty sure they will make me pull out as soon as they notice. But annual flowers are allowed without prior approval and we live far enough north that Morning Glories aren't perennials so I would argue with them, at least a little. 

But I like my tidy front garden too. I've added what I can to give it some personality. I've skirted the rules as much as I can to make it look like my house, not a generic house.  

There is also a really cute little weed in the corner of one of the front beds. When it first bloomed Brent asked me what it was that I had planted. I told him it was a weed but not to pull it because it's pretty. Then I told him the only difference between a flower and weed is if you planted it on purpose but both could be just as pretty. He decided that was deep and for that reason alone the weed could stay, the fact that it's a cute little flower just adds an extra layer. 

It's super tiny, like those blooms are about the size of my pinkie nail.

The backyard beds are reaching full unruly right about now. The Black Eyed Susans are getting ready to burst into bloom but the bushes themselves are giant, this is the year I need to decide if I like them enough to keep them or if I replace them with something else. My hydrangeas are big enough to make me think I might end up taking them out because they are so close to the house. But they are so pretty that I will wait and see, maybe next year I'll prune the backs of them a bit. Some of the wildflower seeds that I spread are up and going crazy and we will see what comes back next year, but I think I'll probably plant a lot of flowers in the beds next year instead.

I told Brent that my vision for those beds was just exactly that. Unruly. Just overgrown and filled with lots of stuff. I think I wrote before about how sad it used to make me when my Mom would go in and clear out the overgrown plants. I get it, she wanted a variety and some plants just take over a space (like those Black Eyed Susans). But I still hated it. I hate when the directions for planting have you go in and cull seedlings. Again, I get it, it leaves more room for the ones that you leave, they have a better chance to get full and lush, instead of crowded in. But I want them crowded in. I was them to look like everything all at once. 

I don't want a completely tidy and neat yard. 

When we were looking at houses that was often a draw to a space. Not the inside of the house that needed a full remodel, but the outside space that probably needed the same. A lot of overgrown shrubs and flowers. Beds that had overrun their borders. Wildflowers run amok. Often during open houses we would hear other people looking at the house talking about how they would change the yard. What all they would pull out, how they would "tame" it. Brent and I would look at each other with horrified expressions and think maybe we should buy the place just to save it from them!

We like spaces to sit and spaces to set up his smoker some cool pathways winding their way through lots of green and colors. Bees, butterflies, even that fucking walnut farming squirrel. 

I am tempted to make friends with the crows in the neighborhood. See if I can start tempting them into the yard with sunflower seeds and shiny bits. But I'm afraid they will chase out the mourning doves and starlings and make too big of a mess. But that's kind of dream of the yard too. Wildlife. 

That's the part that makes us think even though we bought this place originally thinking we'd retire here we still might end up buying a place on a little bit of land on the edge of civilization. Either here or in Michigan. A little more freedom to go a little more unruly. 

And Michigan has the bonus of being less expensive so Brent might be able to retire earlier. 

But snow.  And humidity during the summer. And areas that politically and religiously we just do not line up with.

Of course we will see what this next election cycle brings and it might make all the difference in the world as to what we decide. 

"Oh, Canada, please help us pass the test. I'd even learn French... if that lets us in to rest..."