Our Big Backyard

As I walked in this morning from gathering eggs in our backyard, I skirted holes and blackberry starts and the tallest of the weeds, and I remembered . . .

We moved to this house with two little boys, a two-year-old and an eight-month-old. The massive backyard spoke to me of bare feet and picnics and playtime. I filled in holes and dug out blackberries, thinking of dirty little feet running pell-mell every which way. I didn’t want anyone tripping in holes or stepping on thistles.

But the two-year-old became a seven-year-old, and the eight-month-old became a six-year-old. Along came a three-year-old, as well as six chickens and a very rowdy dog. And suddenly, the backyard is full of holes again. I haven’t dug out blackberries for a very long time, and they are sprouting up all over the place. The grass is almost perpetually in need of mowing. At any given moment, you’ll find at least one tape dispenser, a scissors or two, bits of string and paper, random toy machines, and who knows what else chewed up, used up, and discarded in the grass.

No one runs around out there barefoot.

But briars and holes and miscellanea aside, it has big beautiful trees and a trampoline and a swing set and the coolest tree house ever. It has chickens and a dog and three little boys who frequent it, and I’m as thankful as the day we moved here to have that big backyard.

Eric keeps talking about grading it out and replanting it. I remind him that we’ll still have the boys and the dog and the chickens, and even the nicest grading and planting job won’t stand a chance against that combination.

So we wear footwear out there, and we watch our step, and I especially try not to think about all the holes filled and all the blackberries dug, back when I was a hopeful mom of two toddlers and oh, wonderful thought, no dog.

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You know me, I can't resist a trip down memory lane. 🙂

Here's how our backyard looked when we first moved in. And here's the tiny occupants enjoying it. 🙂

Just look at those little bare toes. Now you see why I attacked the blackberries and the holes with a vengeance.

Here it is all fenced in, before every other random thing under the sun moved in.

The biggest attraction in the backyard for quite a while was a fire way back in the corner. I have countless pictures of Alec with countless fires, but here's just one of the earliest ones. 🙂

Then came the chicken house and the chickens and the yellow slide and the toys and a little shed made out of pallets, and that was only the beginning.

Eventually a third little buddy showed up to play. 🙂

And so many other things showed up, too. We made Alec a little flowerbed. Eric hung swings between two of the trees. The trampoline moved in, along with multiple swimming pools that came and went over the summers. And of course, eventually, there was Thunder, with his master hole-digging skills.Best of all, Eric built the boys the neatest little tree house.