Give Thanks in All Things

Our new house is perfect. It really is. It has flaws, and I love each and every flaw, because every one of the tiny things about our house that makes it not perfect all came together for my benefit in that this big beautiful house was within our budget, and we were lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time with an extraordinary real estate broker. It was a miracle, and every time I drive up, I am thankful.

There was less than a month between when we first made the offer and when we closed on the house, so, while we did our due diligence on the big things (our house has no major issues), we did not notice the small things until after we’d moved in.

The first of these was the large tree in the front yard. Every major limb was rotten to the point of being hollow. We’d planned to take it down and replace it within a year, but a month after we moved in, one of the limbs cracked and started leaning on our house. The tree was down the next week, much to the dismay of our tree-hugging neighbors who feel, like the prior residents of our house, that any tree is a good tree, even a non-native notorious house-destroyer. I’ve since planted four new trees in the front yard, a (native) maple, a ginkgo, and two (native) Mexican plums. All’s well in the tree department, but the shock of losing a major shade tree killed half of my lawn.

With no sprinkler system, making the garden look respectable again is going to be a challenge .

You read that right.

My wonderful, big, beautiful brick McMansion on a creek in my favorite neighborhood in Dallas does not have an underground irrigation system.

I am certain that the prior owners of this house, who had it custom-built, did it deliberately, as a cost-saving measure (they spent money on things that mattered, like great construction) but also out of concern for the environment, since sprinkler systems are notorious water-wasters. And, if I had left the Arizona ash in place, I, too, would have been able to maintain my lawn with a hose-fed old-fashioned sprinkler. The rest of the garden was fine, but nothing special, overgrown in some places, but mostly thin grass. Since the weather turned cool a month ago, I’ve been working outside in the yard nonstop, and so has Chris. We’ve cleared out a lot of brush, put down ryegrass seed, transplanted bushes, and planted eighteen trees. I’ve been outside with the hose for two hours every day trying to give my new garden a good start.

I love working outside. I love being able to BE outside. I love having the strength to hold the hose for two hours. I love having the cognitive ability to remember where I have watered, and where I have not. I love being able to figure out how to use the nozzle on my sprayer. I love being able to read, and research, and plan, and figure out what trees will work well where, and I love my husband for understanding that planting trees as soon as possible is a good idea, for earning the resources that allowed me to go out and buy eighteen trees in a month, and for not complaining too much when it means we will be eating beans from now until Christmas.

“”Work in your garden,” was what “they” said to me, when I finished cancer treatment and asked, “What do I do now.”

I know what they mean now when they talk about work being an offering of praise and thanksgiving.