The Garden of Weeden

When we moved into our humble abode we were very excited that it had a yard. A small little yard with a persimmon tree and beautiful vines. I added a wooden bench and although the grass was a bit dead, it was very charming and Archer and the dogs and I spent many an afternoon playing in the dirt.


We had been talking about fixing it up, making it really nice, getting a rod-iron table and maybe some lanterns or a grill and a sand-box. A sand-box would be really family of us.

My parents must have read my mind because for Archer's 1st birthday, he received a beautiful new shiny boat-shaped sand-box with a steering wheel and a veranda. High class. I couldn't wait to get it all set up back there.

We decided to make the yard really nice, a haven for Archer's boat, somewhere to enjoy, a little oasis! We dug up the dead grass and the top layers of dirt, getting our hands dirty and shit, but unfortunately our yard-makeover-project was abandoned when the next morning it was 641 degrees. Far too hot to work the yard. The days passed and pretty soon the weeks and finally the months. Two months...


And then the "beautiful" vines took over. They grew over everything, the dirt and the grass and the bench and even started growing inside Archer's room. They grew over the sand-box-box and into my soul.

Poor sand-box, all alone under all of that foliage. Poor me, brown-thumbed and depressed at our mess of a yard.


I come from a family of gardening professionals. My mother and aunt both being impressive gardeners featured in magazines and my Nana, well, the woman is queen of all things green, an author and gardening pro who travels the world talking shop and knowing everything.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to contact my Nana because she has been spending the summer on the family island off the coast of Maine. Sounds fancy but really it's like camping with little shelter, no electricity and/or plumbing but at least it's a family island. I'm not going to complain.

(Nana Backstory: When my grandfather passed away, my Nana decided to take all of her grandchildren (five of us) anywhere we wanted to go in the world. She took my cousin, Erica to Africa, my brother to Turkey and Greece and me to Italy, Spain and France. She was in a wheel-chair at the time (she has bad knees) so we traveled with a chauffeur and I pushed her along cobblestone streets, many a mile, her pointing her cane at horny Italians as to keep them away from her eighteen-year-old granddaughter. "Shoo! Shoo!," she said.

Because she was in a wheelchair we never waited in a single line. Not at the Sistine Chapel or the Pompidou or The Louvre. We even bypassed the six hour wait at the Uffizi. Lesson learned: the only way to travel during high season is with a Nana in a wheelchair.)*

So meanwhile as we struggle with our gardening crisis, Archer's Na-nana is rough'n it on ze island de familia. SO now what? This is the very question we have been asking ourselves.


After weeks of wringing our hands and pacing and trying to figure out what the hell we are going to do with our mess of a yard so we can set up the damn sand-box sometime before Archer's Bar Mitzvah, we have done what any respectable local would do in our desperate situation. We called TLC, HGTV and DIY and filled out online applications for a makeover. Please pray our backyard gets a call-back.



The most important lesson I have learned living in the H-wood is that if you can't do it yourself, find a TV show that can do it for you.

And so we wait...

GGC

*I just realized that this is a blog post in itself. Coming soon...