We finished our harvest on August 30 this year. Since then we've been blessed with mostly beautiful weather and have been able to tackle some of the outside stuff that's been on our ever-increasing to-do list.
Yesterday, when I took some kibbles out to the cats, I looked around at the trees. We have many, many trees in our yard- mostly evergreens. My Sweetheart has been watering them for the past week, so when the kitty feeding was complete I walked over to the little trianglular area where he was and started looking at the trees. Most of them in 1 particular row looked fine, but there was 1 that looked quite sickly. Upon further inspection we discovered it was full of spiders and other crawlies. Needles were dead, the tree was dying. Out came the chain saw and down came the tree. Then we were on a mission. Dead tree limbs were cut down and hauled away. The garden boxes were cleaned out. Flower beds were dismantled. Fall has officially arrived at the farm.
Next on the list was the task of cleaning out the deck boxes. We have 3 big rubbermaid deck boxes- perfect for storage and extra seating. The cats enjoy lounging on them. One of the deck boxes stores our barbecue stuff and patio cushions; one stores dry dog food and off season boots- and apparently 14 cans of mosquito spray. We found them at the bottom of the deck box, along with 2 dog collars and mismatched gloves and old rubber boots with holes in the soles. The other deck box held treasures. Treasures that, as I was kneeling in front of it going through the contents, reduced me to tears. I tried to keep them under control, but just as DD came out to help, and DS got off the bucket tractor and glanced my way, the tears gushed. Geyser-like. No holding back. I was a mess.
There were, in that box, 10 years of childhood memories. Every thing in that box brought back a memory that I had forgotten about. I was perpexed as to why there were so many big rocks in the bottom of that box until I saw the one that had been painted- by DD. When she was 7. I could picture her sitting on the table, on the deck, on a beautiful summer day, paint colors spread out, and creating works of art. I found a notebook of maps, hand drawn by DS, the summer between grade 1 and 2. I had just found a picture of him the other day- he was wearing shorts with a backpack on his back, and he was holding a clipboard with a notebook. When I saw the picture I knew he was mapping and I wondered where that map book went. It was in the deck box. I rescued a couple pieces of sidewalk chalk- a couple of the many dozen that went in the bucket of the tractor to be dumped. DD spend many hours drawing masterpieces on our driveway. Flattened soccer balls became memories of DS kicking them around the yard. "Do you want any of this?" I asked my 2 teenagers. They looked at me almost strangely, almost sadly, almost happy. "No..." they both said.
I would not have believed that time could disappear so quickly. When each treasure had been put in that deck box 'until next year' I never dreamt that 'next year' would come and we'd be getting rid of this part of their childhood. Where once my sweet little painting, drawing daughter stood with her rocks and her chalk now stands a beautiful young woman. My map drawing little boy with glasses has now become my kind, strong young man ready to leave home in probably less than a year. And I cried. The treasures, except for the few pages that I salvaged, are gone now. But my real treasures are still with me- outside the deck box and in my heart forever.
