One-Acre Angst

There's nothing quite like having loaded fruit trees in your backyard—where you can just pluck a plum off a branch, polish it on your shirt, and eat it right there at its very freshest. So juicy and delicious. It makes me wish I'd met Mr. W in his 20s when he was all ripe for the pickin'. But I digress...

My point is, I love summertime in our yard. I love that we can harvest peaches and plop them into our caprese salads. (If you haven't done this, you MUST try it. Trust me.) I love that we made fajitas this weekend with an onion we grew. I love that Mr. W and the chickens worked together (he dug the hole and they kicked dirt back into it...) to plant zucchini on Sunday. And I love that the shoulder-high weedfest we had going in our back 40 got mowed down and tilled.

Troublemakers.

But that also brings me to something that doesn't feel so lovey: having so much freaking land it's like we're Tom Hanks and Wilson the volleyball adrift in an infinite sea. Every time I look at that big swath of acreage in our backyard, I get a little touch of vertigo. It's. Just. Too. Much.

See what I'm sayin'?

Our house is like a child's-sized shoebox up there.

As a registered control freak, it completely stresses me out to have that area growing wild and looking so unkempt. And after Mr. W and I went to a birthday party on a beautifully manicured piece of property recently (think freshly mowed grass and white lights draped from the canopy of a beautiful oak) we're both antsy to get this part of the yard into better shape. So he has put his Sketchup skills to work once again, and has begun drafting ideas for our open space. Behold:

Of course I have grand visions of hosting outdoor yoga and coaching classes down there, followed by micro-farm-to-table dinners. And of course we'll be drinking wine made from our yard's own grapes. While Mr. W plays the fiddle and I sing folk songs. It shall be dreamy.

In the meantime, we'll just have to enjoy what we've accomplished so far—like the fire pit Mr. W installed. It's made of cortex steel like the edging in our front yard planters, so it'll get a cool, rusted patina over time. Mr. W sort of built it himself (someone else bent the metal but he riveted it) so no one else has one exactly like this. Pretty sure if it went up on auction it'd fetch like a mil.

We also got the chicken yard fence all completed. Now those little buggars can't escape and poop all over our back patio. 

Anyway, that's where we are with the yard accomplishments and growing angst. I'm sure I'll be cursing and shoveling gravel back there again at some point in the not too distant future...