You may wonder, “Why the tagline ‘Maybe it will be friends with me?'”
Fans of a certain British author know the correct quote, and how it pertains to the ground, but the full quote didn’t fit in the space allotted, hence my rewrite.
Although we had walked the grounds a few times in the fall of 2016 when we viewed the property we closed on in March of 2017, we were new at this house buying thing.
We had a general idea about what plants were on the property, but since we’re not from Gardner, we didn’t have that sort of familiarity one might have with a home in a small city where they grew up: how the yard might change throughout the year, when a certain tree was planted, and the like.
We knew the property had no one living there for at least a few months, possibly longer. We never asked for specifics. It also never occurred to us, both inexperienced gardeners, to look closer when we had walked about. We relied on a street view image that turned out to be from August 2011! (Which only showed the front and very little of the sides–forget the backyard.)
Even after our offer was accepted, and we had the long wait through winter with weather related delays on top of the usual mortgage company shenanigan delays, we never thought to go back and take a walk around. Sure, we drove by a few times, but nothing more.
After closing, moving stuff in over time, then moving ourselves in, it was still a while before the snow melted. At last! I could take a better look at our yard. I found myself taking a picture. One that I would repeat over time as one way to mark progress. What ran through my mind, cluttered with notions of what we could do with our bounty of a postage stamp sized lot, as I looked at that large garden bed and took the very first picture was the correct quote of “I wonder if it will be friends with me?”
So far, I haven’t taken many of those progress shots I planned. Life happened, a lot of things we thought we’d get done…welllllll, nope. Now that I realize how long it’s been since I took one, I will try to do so tomorrow so you can see how “Whoah, friend!”, wasn’t nearly what my friend was capable of given more time.
Each image has a hover text, and clicking any will take you to a slideshow with more info.
