This past weekend we spent most of our time in the front, back and side yards. It felt perfectly fall-ish with the contrast of cool air requiring an extra layer in the shade while warm sun streamed down from above leaving our faces and backs sweaty from the heat and hard work.
All three of us were out there contributing in our own ways and it was wonderful. Christopher's new mode of transport -- walking*, of course, with frequent quasi-sprints to train for speed -- makes yard work (in an enclosed area!) fun and much easier. He's not getting his hands dirty while going from here to there, and he's much more satisfied with exploring on his own as he can carry objects of interest - rocks, leaves, twigs - and re-appropriate them to places he sees fit. It seems we have made a few errors in our placement of various backyard items. Basil plants should be out of their pots and sitting on the lawn, rocks along the house belong in free form piles on the patio, leaves go in the top of the AC unit... and so on.
Mike distributed heavy bags of top soil around the yard while I played with my new gardening tool/workout machine: the Action Hoe. Christopher dragged small handfuls of leaves over to our bigger raked piles and occasionally drove his Radio Flyer through the mounds of crackling, red leaves. We even put him in the yard bin to try and tamp down the leaves to make more room - we thought it was funnier than he did.
We over-seeded and fertilized the lawn by hand, paying attention to spots that had been preyed upon by squirrels and bunnies trying to fatten up for winter and by the harsh heat of July and August. We dug in new soil around the bazillion hostas on the edge of our yard and weeded out the abundant native prairie weeds which had freely and generously reseeded themselves over random areas of the perimeter. We pulled out the sweet potato vines that had grown out of the veggie bed and clear through to the other side of the fence (!) and pulled up 4 beautiful specimens, 5 scrawny ones and many teeny tiny ones. Note To Self: next spring, don't over crowd in your excitement to grow everything that you will put on table, and only plant TWO sweet potato vines at the most!**
Though we were sore and stupid-tired by Sunday night from all of the physical labor, our yard looked, for a day, well-loved and well-kept. Monday morning brought wind and this morning we've had thunderstorms, all of which has sent more leaves and twigs tumbling to the ground. I guess that means we'll have something to keep us busy this upcoming weekend. :)
*C has some new shoes that are the perfect marriage between Robeez and hard soled shoes. I felt it was a little early for hard soles since he's still working out some balance issues (but really, not many - he can stumble and catch himself without falling, which is pretty impressive). They're called Pedipeds and have just the right amount of cushion and insulation for being outside on fall pavement and exploring park grounds but they also have a lot of "give" and allow his foot to roll and his piggies to grip. He loves them so much! If you ask him to go get his shoes and socks and he goes to dig his shoes out of the shoe bin and brings them in a hurry to get them on his feet! and get outside!
**I have several Evanston-mom friends who also enjoy getting dirt under their fingernails in the name of produce, fun, and warm weather. I'm hoping to corral them into a seed & start co-op of sorts. Eg. I'll do the tomato starts from seeds in the workshop, someone else can get a flat of bunny-deterring marigolds, another can get the sweet potato starts which come in packages of 6... and we'll split them all up for more diverse gardens!
