What's wrong with this picture?

So what is wrong with this picture? The photo on the left is my home. Not my dream home, but my home. The photo above is the view from my home. It's a small photo but what you are looking at is the beach, the bay, and a small lighthouse in the distance. Okay, there are a couple of things wrong but I will start with my first pet peeve and unfortunately it has the same number of letters as my second pet peeve. Both have four letters. You win if you come up with either of the off the bat.

Largest pet peeve: YEWS. What is the purpose of yews? Who came up with this concept as something to grace the entrance of homes? Does it have something to do with low maintenance? Does anyone find them attractive? O, I have an answer to that. My neighbor finds them attractive. He has them too. He is so kind that he trims mine for me. I think that's because he doesn't want my yews looking shoddy next to his yews. I might add, since you can't really see them from the photo, that the yews are surrounded by white gravel.

Second largest pet peeve: LAWN. Do you know what you have to do to maintain an actual lawn at the beach? First you need to truck in soil. We live on sand. Then you have to use fertilizer and weed killer and all the things suburbanites use to keep their grass looking lush and green. And I've just written the worst third problem: why do we live at the beach and force our yards to look like we live in Greenwich, CT? Why aren't we striving to create the perfect beach living environment?

I want to start slow with my neighbor. I don't want to alienate him. So we've come to an agreement. I will start with the yews. They are a goner. I will give him the white gravel for his yew bed. I will do the first stage of my gardening in the 6' by 17' two formerly yew raised gardens for this year's flower and vegetable gardens. They will be contained and I won't be overwhelmed.  I will let him have his lawns. He can mow mine. I will cook for him.

In the future, I will create lawn paths through 4 gardens. That is if I find I have the time and do a good job with the two original gardens I plan to design. Additionally, I will plant a shade garden in the back of the house.

I hope removing the yews is not too cost prohibitive. That part remains to be seen. There are going to be some interesting environmental changes this spring and summer. I am looking forward to them. This has been energized by a beautiful 65 degree spring day today. Great day.

Excuse My Sand

Did I Mention I Live at the Beach?

For those of us with the fortune of living by the water, and for those of us with the misfortune of having a packrat mentality, the beach poses an especially dangerous risk--detritus--or in the minds of collectors, gifts from the sea. Above are a couple of examples worth voting on. The first is a glass urn filled with my favorite colors of sea glass. Though it's not shown, I have two of these. I place votive candles inside and they look quite lovely at night. The second and third photo is of a large (maybe 15 inches) horseshoe crab. It's cracked. I have others and seasonally they appear all over the beach. Parked in various places around the house are many more boxes and jars of sea glass and a variety of shells. I have one glass urn that is about 2 feet tall filled with shells of all types. Do I pack it or do I start over?

The problem with all of these things is that they collect dust. You can't dust off an urn of sea glass. You have to empty it out, wash the sea glass, wash the urn, try to dry everything off as best as you can and then put it all back in. That takes up a good part of a sunny beach day.

I've read on various design sites that shells are the new hot decorating idea. Then on other sites, I've read that shells are passe. Okay, explain this to me...how does something natural become passe? Excuse me, but you really should get those trees out of the yard; they're not in style anymore! Away away with the flower arrangements; flowers are out. Not getting it.

Right now, out on the deck is a plastic bag full of shells that my 7 year old granddaughter gathered while we were walking on the beach. Children are indiscriminate when it comes to collecting things in the wild. The bag is full of seaweed and sand-encrusted broken shells, broken crabs, a piece of a lobster claw. If you suggest to them that they should hold out for something very special or whole, they quickly inform you that whatever they have in their gritty paw is very special and therefore must go into the bag. I don't know if that's because children can see the wonder in things that we dismiss as adults or that they are afraid they may never find something special or whole. I think it's the former. This is not me building a case for why I should drag my granddaughter's shells to the new house, but I confess I have an emotional attachment to that grocery bag that's collecting flies out there.

So I live at the beach. When I move, I will live at the beach. Do I take the sea glass and shells or leave the sea glass and shells? These are the serious questions of our times. Or my time anyway. Perhaps now that I am an adult, I fear I will never find anything special or whole again.