For our household (and by household I mean hubby and I, with periodic personal appearances by our kids) the recent long weekend meant yard work.
The grass was, literally, knee deep.
The leaves that had fallen last fall, had become bonded to whatever they had landed on.
The weeds were growing significantly each day the sun shone.
And, there were plants, bushes and trees that were not thriving or had outgrown their current locales, so they needed a fresh start in a new corner of the property.
One of the tasks for the weekend was to remove a bush that had been in it’s location since before we purchased the property.
It was one that may have been in it’s location since the beginning of time. When we were building a supportive wall with planter boxes we decided to simply build around the beast of a bush. The thing is, it was ugly! It did not have a nice form, and it’s holly-shaped leaves dangerous to clean up once fallen and dried, as the sharp edges poke through every gardening glove I’ve ever owned. I believe it is called a grape holly bush.
And it was time for it to go!
So I trimmed it down, branch by branch, as far as I could do with my clippers, then the hand saw, until all that was left was it’s trunk and roots. At this point, it was time to call in the big boys …
aka. hubby and our son, along with their tool of choice …
the axe.
What a delight it was to hear them discussing what to do, and how to do it.
Then there were the initial strikes with the axe, complete with grunts and other guttural utterances.
It was at that point I knew that was no place for :
a. a mother of a teen yielding an axe
b. a wife of a man yielding an axe
c. a woman whose estrogen was no match for testosterone times two
This activity was male bonding at it’s best.
As I excused myself to another part of the property to work on another project, I am certain they did not notice me walking away, but I smiles as I turned, and left them to do that which can bond men like little else …
dangerous tools, and the need to destroy.
As a mom and wife, there are few things sweeter than that kind of father-son bonding.
itsawonderfilledlife 