When shrubs attack

BG and I have few television loyalties. BG is not really a TV person, and I would be a potato rooted from the couch if I didn't check myself. These factors add up to =  the television generally stays off in our house.* We both make an exception for the History Channel's "Life After People" series. The premise is that humans are gone in one swoop; nature takes over; vegetation destroys everything humankind has created; eventually, it's as if there were never people (except for the legacy of plastic, which sadly lasts FOREVER, btw).

No matter the theme of the episode, there's always a scene at the end that makes me feel a little sick. It hammers home the message People are small and temporary and unimportant. Sometimes truth is terrifying. 

A tiger on the overgrown post-peopled White House lawn! It's like a nightmare!

When we viewed this house back in Feb/March and I told BG the patio was "a little Life after Peopley," he knew exactly what I meant.

BEWARE OF TIGERS.



Here is where I wish I could say ^that^ pic is at the end of an episode. Alas... this was the state of our patio as recently as this past weekend. The previous owners took great pride in the care of this house and their yard and patio. But two years of no occupancy followed by six months of neglect during the hottest summer on record, and it's shrubs gone wild.

BG and I spent many hours outside Saturday. He handled the chainsaw, and I was the branch mule, lugging limbs and shrubs out to the curb. The artifacts we unearthed delighted and motivated us. A trio of flower pots, a garden hose, a little bird spigot, feature lights that shine upon the tree trunk (they work!), and two lattices for trained vines.



Sunday we both felt like we had been stomped on by angry giants, but I think the end result was worth it:



Though we still have some work to do--knotty stumps have buckled parts of the patio foundation and roots have taken up residence in the resting place of ghosts of flowerbeds past--the kids have been in absolute heaven with the reclaimed play space. They took their breakfast on the patio Sunday morning. They have been riding scooters and throwing balls and singing "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" as they skip across the pavers. It's in these moments that I can quiet the too-big thoughts about temporality. It doesn't matter what happens in life after people. In this life, I can delight in helping our little people collect the gumballs purged by the sweetgum tree. 

*I totally turn it on when the kids go to bed.