It ain’t much, but it’s a start.
A start of what, you ask? The usual holiday insanity. Decorating to excess, i.e., overdoing it as usual. Is it a little early for a ceramic tree with orange pumpkins and purple spiders? Depends who you ask, I guess. These guys in town have had their house decked out for weeks already.
I would too, if I lived in a replica of the Amityville Horror house! Lucky bastards.
I’m not putting up any of the life-size skeletons or other Halloween stuff for a few more weeks yet, but I will bust out the harvest decor this weekend. It certainly doesn’t feel like fall–the humidity has been roughly 1,000% all week–but I can pretend.
Time to stock up on candy corn too!
Quid pro quo
Thankfully, given those 100° heat indices this week, our outdoor summer projects are winding down. I spent many weekends over the past few months digging up all the wild ginger, dead nettle, and lily of the valley that had overtaken the bed above our lower pond, pushing on through intense heat, stifling humidity, and swarms of mosquitoes. My muscles ached and my back hurt afterward, every single time, but hey: mission accomplished! The heavy duty plastic we laid down is unsightly, but it’ll smother the weeds until we’re ready to begin Phase 2 next spring.
What’s Phase 2, you ask? (Why do I keep starting paragraphs this way?, I ask.) We (Tara) will have a clean slate to plant all new shrubs and flowers, and we plan to add a waterfall feature that’ll run through the center of the bed, under the bridge, and cascade into the pond. Ambitious? Yes. Labor-intensive? You betcha. Will I bitch and complain incessantly about all the work? Duh. But it’ll look great once it’s complete!
As a wise man…well, Ron Popeil…once said, But wait. There’s more! Tara has somehow convinced me we should have three large trees removed from our property: a honey locust, a black locust, and a hemlock.
When it comes to trees, my philosophy is, leaf them alone! I love trees. So much so, I once verbally heckled a tree cutter who was simply going about his job. All the trees on this property were a huge selling point for me. Tara wanted enough land to expand her gardening hobby. MarTar Manor seemed like a compromise that would make us both happy.
The only problem? Even the sunniest part of our yard, where Tara built her garden beds and fancy-ass trellis system, still ends up shaded a good portion of the day. We harvest what I feel are a ton of crops regardless (we’ll never get through all these freakin’ peppers!), but Tara sees Neighbor Brian’s shade-free garden, notices how much bigger his tomatoes are, how fast his cucumbers grow, and gets crazy ideas in her head.
“If we took out these three trees, it would open up the garden to full sun,” she said a few weeks ago.
I immediately balked at the suggestion. My goal is to add trees, not subtract them! The math wasn’t mathing, as they say. I shot down the idea, refused to even entertain it. Tara was disappointed but didn’t press the issue.
And then a funny thing happened. I stepped out onto the deck one morning and spent a long time staring at the backyard. Thinking about how passionate she is over gardening. Corny as it sounds, I like making my wife happy. I realized that the locust trees don’t really benefit us; the back of our house faces north, so they don’t provide any meaningful shade. And the leaves are a pain in the ass every autumn, constantly piling up on our deck, covering our table and chairs and grill. I’ll sweep them up in the morning, and by midday, the piles are just as big as before.
Maybe, I thought, I can channel Hannibal Lecter.
Not because I was craving liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti or anything nearly so sinister. I might be able to work a little quid pro quo magic is all. Give something up to get something back.
So, I beckoned Tara to join me outside. Told her I’d had a change of heart about the trees. “We can have them removed and expand your garden,” I said. “And if we do that, I bet we could fit a nice little gazebo right there.”
“Hmm,” she replied. “I don’t hate that idea.”
“With a tiki bar inside!” I added quickly. You gotta strike while the iron is hot, guys.
Tara kind of rolled her eyes at that, but she didn’t outright shoot down my tikizebo dream. Optimist that I am, that’s the next best thing to a yes.
The cannibal would be proud.
By the way, I owe Beth a shoutout for that clever portmanteau. Initially she called my gazebo/tiki bar combination a “gazebiki” but decided that sounded like a small Eastern European country (it totally does). “Tikizebo” rolls off the tongue much better!
Oh, and I must add, we aren’t just bulldozing the backyard. Tara suggested we plant a maple to take the place of the hemlock. Smaller, so it doesn’t shade out the garden. I like this idea; it’ll give us some nice fall color, too. And we will also be planting more miniature fruit trees. Ironically, when all is said and done, we’re going to end up with more trees than we started out with…so I guess the math is mathing after all. Whew!
I don’t know when we’ll have the trees removed. Short of Mother Nature taking care of the problem for us by whipping up a nice windstorm (please don’t do this, Mother Nature), it’s going to cost $$$. But, as Tara pointed out, if we’re going to be here long-term–and we ARE, no more moves, I swear!–then we might as well invest in making MarTar Manor everything we want it to be.
And if that happens to include Mai Tais in a a freestanding, roofed outdoor structure with screened sides, so be it.
Mark My Words 
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