Trade-Offs

I'm still trying to get rid of the landscape rock my previous owners were so fond of.

My friends Hannah* and Steve* have a large drainage ditch/percolation sink on their property they need filled with something permeable.

I got rock, they need rock. So let's trade.

Howbeit, I wasn't exactly planning on their coming over to scoop rock this evening. Monday night is community choir night and our Fearless Musical Director does not take random absences lightly.

But Hannah rang me at 5:00 o'clock this afternoon and said, "We're all coming over at 6:00 to get that rock. OK?"

"Uh, it's choir night, and I'm supposed to be there at 7:15."

"That's okay. I have to get the kids home by 7:00 to get them to bed for school in the morning. And this is the only time this week we can do it."

Um . . . my front border looked really ratty (witness specimen photo from last Spring): All random piles of rock and landscape fabric sticking up here and there, where I'd cleared the ground to plant daffodils and balloon flowers in previous years. Or from where I tried to dig up the miniature rhododendrens to transplant them in a more favorable spot, and gave up because the roots were under all that rock and I'd run out of places in my backyard to pile it. Good intentions and optimistic plans are all very well, but your typical appraiser won't see that. Curb appeal, my house front had not.

So I told Hannah and family to come ahead, and I'd take the consequences.

And they did, with their van, their tarp, their shovels, a five-gallon bucket or two, and a little plastic child's wheelbarrow. She and Steve and I amongst ourselves got the front border looking a bit more orderly; at least, if you look at it from the sidewalk. Helped (at some detriment to the plantings), by their kids Stevie* and Letitia*.

Wonderful how much three and two/halves people can get done in an hour and fifteen minutes! No, I did not make choir, and I shall have to prostrate myself in deepest self-agnegation to our director.

But it'll be worth it, for the work that got done.

Too bad the daylight ran out. Too bad Hannah and Steve don't need about 20 more cubic yards of the stuff. I'll trade them the rock, for a hole to put it in!

______________________________________

*Made-up names