I love my back yard. It’s where I go to get away
from things while still being accessible with a shout. It’s where I go in the summer
to sit and read or drink coffee in the morning sunshine while I journal or
write poetry. We live on a hillside, as do most of the residents of Potlatch,
and we have a two-car garage with a patio/car port and it is attached to the
house with a little deck and steps down to the grass and my vegetable garden. I’m
able to sit here and write, enjoy the company of friends or slip down into the
corn and be lost from view to the whole world while I admire squash blossoms
and honeybees or carrots and tomatoes.
Yesterday a young friend of mine, a former student,
came over to visit and we sat out here on the patio and he told me I had a “chill
vibe” about me that he loved. There is no place where I feel that vibe more
than here in my back yard. Don’t get me wrong, I love my entire yard and feel
very fortunate to live in a fully detached house where I can have a yard to
just blend into the outdoors right at home, but the back yard is more welcoming
for at home escapes and/or socializing while the front yard is more on display
and I feel like I need to be working or preparing to leave.
Out back I can drink a beer and read poetry,
shovel snow and build a fire in the fire pit. I can escape the street lights at
night and view the constellations and the Milky Way. On the north side it has
potted flowers where hummingbirds linger in the summer evenings and the grass
is nearly perfect. On the south side the grass is mostly weeds but the
vegetables grow like a jungle fringed with sunflowers. The hedge between my
neighbor to the south provides a bit of privacy but not so much that I can’t
have a chat with the lady next door. This side of the yard is the side where I
have projects and plans for further landscaping and it all keeps me
satisfyingly busy. I really love my back yard.
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