Why I Now Enjoy Spring

The yard. My husband beautifies it each year. Before him, it was an empty lot filled with weedy grass and dandelions.

He has a green thumb. When a guy at work was going to throw away an apple seed, Chris took it, nurtured it, and stuck it in the ground. It’s grown into a sturdy tree. Last year it produced a small apple.

My ungreen thumb doesn't know a purple cone flower from a weed when they peek through the dirt, but I do recognize a morning glory. We’re trying to keep them from taking over the garden.

morning glory fence: Fall 2010

I like the climbing vine on our chain link fence and arbor, but not when it wraps around sunflowers, string beans, and other vegetables in the garden. I picked over 200 of the buggers within ten minutes one time last summer. Yes, I counted as I plucked ’em.

Morning glories are hardy. We wrapped some in damp paper towels and sent them home with my friend Elizabeth Tatge last summer. Later she had a nice little pot of blooming flowers for her patio.

morning glories toppled a climbing pole last Fall in 2014

It’s not just plants and flowers that Chris has filled the yard with, it’s the entire atmosphere he’s created in our outdoor room—that’s what HGTV would call it.

One weekend in the spring after we'd been married a year, I traveled to South Dakota for a surprise anniversary party. Chris and his daughter Brittany stayed home, for she had track practice and music contests.

When I returned three days later, he had built a pavilion over the cement where a clothesline used to be. I had no idea he was doing it and was so surprised. Then that Fall, Chris dug a hole, got some lumber, and designed an above ground pond. When the fountain runs, it adds peace to already quiet surroundings.

 

Top picture from April 2008. Bottom picture taken July 2009.

After just one season of a garden with flowers (I'd had a veggie garden before), and a yard with trees, bushes, and vines, I experienced Spring in a whole new way. I could actually sit outside and enjoy the scenery. Read a book. Talk on the phone. Pet the dogs. Take a nap. Just be.

If you want to know what I used to think of Spring, click here and read last week's post. But now, with the beauty and joy of Spring brought to my back door, how could I not like this season?


Have you ever experienced a new perspective on something you thought you didn’t like? Who or what changed your mind about it?