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Freedom

A weekly family column for the 100 Mile Free Press
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For about the past week, my wife and son have been gone due to a conference she was required to attend for work.

Usually, when my wife has been gone, I’ve been hyper-productive. For example, when we were living in Ottawa and she had to go to B.C., I redid our entire yard. Now before I boast of this grand accomplishment, I should let you know that the size of our yard was little bigger than the size of two to three pickup trucks.

The last owner had put fresh sod on it, but within about a year it had all turned to nothing but a large muddy pool. Walking past the neighbours’ backyards I had come to the conclusion that none of them had managed to grow a nice lawn either, with many having chosen alternatives.

Rolling up my sleeves I set to work. I noticed someone was selling large concrete patio pavers.

I drove to their place, loaded them into our small hatchback and drove back.

Now I made this trip several times because with the pavers the hatchback was riding so low, it was practically a high-performance car.

I also did the same thing for wood (to build garden boxes), mulch and many, many, many trips for soil. In retrospect, it would have probably been better to have a big garden bag of soil delivered which were all the rage in Ottawa.

I put together a nice path, with two large garden boxes, and a patio all surrounded by a nice thick layer of mulch. My wife, who really likes gardening, was quite excited.

We took a bit of time and planted both of them full. She was really looking forward to growing vegetables in the backyard. Alas, vegetable-wise we never managed to grow anything substantial, with the carrots coming out the size of the tip of my pinky finger.

This time around, the best things I managed to accomplish were washing/cleaning the car and mowing the lawn (at least that went without incident this time around). On top of that, the dog has been a little neglected not getting a walk every day despite it being her three-year-old birthday.

It appears that either I’m getting old or the days have started to shrink! Oh well, at least I’ve been able to hide the evidence of all the crazy all night parties that have taken place.