trash talkin'...

I spent several hours yesterday, in the hotness of July in GA working in the yard. Picking up trash. Not the sort that blows off the street: from inconsiderate, illmannerd, poorly-raised, ignorant people  who toss burger wrappers and beer bottles out the windows. I realized recently this accumulation of limbs, sticks and vines that  fallen over time, is a hazard of forgetting about the Fact of Gravity. How it is always going to be in effect, and will always exert a certain amount of control in our lives: a good thing or we would float away into space. But a bad thing when I never get all the stuff picked up that continually falls in the yard.

Obviously a result of not considering the laws of physics when we decided on a house that has a big wooded lot. Lots of hardwoods, mixed with a few pines and some softer stuff that sheds year-round like tulip poplar and sweet gum.   I thought I had pretty much gotten all the front yard done, and was thinking: This is the last load to push the wheelbarrow up the driveway. When I looked behind some tall azaleas and found a gigantic limb that had recently fallen off a sweet gum tree. So big it will take the chainsaw to make it manageable. The addition of a man to use the saw would certainly be helpful.

I am once again reminded of the pleasantness that occurs when people live in condos, or apartments or some other form of communal living. Not having to even think about what is going on in the landscaping, no mowing or blowing, limbs falling, or raking in the fall. One of the joys of homeownership sometimes seems to be similar to that song you hear from the backseat that never ends, and gets on your very last shredded nerve.

I do love feeling like I live out in the country, instead of on a city lot. But the way traffic has multiplied out here in the panhandle end of the county leads one to think that sense of space and open-air is swifty coming to an end.  It has becomes so congested with housing and retail development, there is a stretch of about two miles I try to completely avoid traveling on. Going around by my elbow to not even get on that section of highway that is always backed up with traffic due to lights being installed too close together. So much for the bucolic life.....