"I'm never going back there", says the seller. Yet, there's tickets for overgrown weeds taped to the front door. So it wasn't difficult to convince the seller and realtor to give permission to do "yard work" before closing (still a few weeks away). They even gave us keys.

To say the yard was overgrown is rather accurate.



The back yard is big (about 1/2 acre total), but you could hardly see the house from the boundary of the yard.


After removing that line of "trees" (large brush is a better description), you can now see the house from behind.



We selected about three trees to save:

The perfect shade tree on the south side of the house.


A really nice "let's have a picnic under it" tree. (Is it a locust tree? It doesn't have thorns.)


And a lopsided pear tree.



Everything else either has or probably will go. Of course, there are plans to buy and plant fruit trees :)

After clearing up most of the trees, Chester tried out our new mower.

A fork in the road

It was not that long ago when I would have said "I just don't understand people who _____". A meaning to be taken, those types of people clearly must either live in some alternate universe or be crazy as a loon. However, it should be noted that not all loons are actually crazy.

It was not all that long ago that I encountered a fork in the road. It was not your usual fork, stamped metal, chrome plated, plain design, but it was a fork that you would remember. The type of fork that projects a curious vibration suggesting there were choices to be made that would impact a persons future. Perhaps the kind of fork you might find when leaving a job you had been at for 7 years, or by purchasing another house at an auction and walking through the kitchen.

Some people don't ever even see that fork, while some may choose to ignore it, I however have picked up the fork , washed it and added it to our silverware drawer. I hope to share some of what transpires with you, perhaps without boring you to tears or driving you to madness.