Author: Leonas Lines

Walking thru this world

Alone, looking for friends?

Searching for joy and love?

I found them unexpectedly

In my backyard.

Getting to know my neighbors

Common interests

Betters our community

And inspires one another

Choka

This summer I was blessed to get to know a few of my neighbor’s better.

It all happened because of a fallen tree in my backyard.

One windy stormy night last Spring a good sized evergreen in my yard was taken down by lightening or wind. Thankfully it fell away from the building and caused no harm.

A few days later a maintenance man cut the tree down and hauled it away leaving a big stump where it had been.

For many days I would gaze out my window at that stump, missing the tree and thinking something needed to take its place to brighten up the yard.

Since I am fond of rock gardens and painting inspirational rocks I decided to put some plants and rocks in around the stump.

My grandson helped me move a potted plant I had to sit on the stump. Then we planted some flowering ground cover perennials and seeds. Since the ground around the stump was so hard and root filled we couldn’t easily dig or plant much but we managed to get some flowers in. Then we put a few rocks around.

A few weeks later my granddaughter came over and we painted a bunch of inspirational rocks to put out.

Through all of this a few of my neighbors who I didn’t really know well were watching the progression and they came out to admire and ask if they could help. They added more unique beautiful items and one of them offered to water the plants daily.

Through all this the project grew and blossomed and we all became friends and now are sharing a common interest of beautifying our backyards to benefit us all.