Making a dream.

(my apologies for not knowing where this photo comes from!)

I'm in  a state of anticipation.

Getting serious about gardening/landscaping means putting up with destruction as well as construction. So far, I'm happy with movement, any movement. People with big machines have cut down trees, removed them, left big trench marks on wet soil. They'll be clearing more land, grading the driveway, constructing arbors and benches.

The deer are lost and disoriented. Newkie, my cat, is keeping her distance. She doesn't like noise. So, she hides from everybody, and changes her hiding place so I can't find her right away.  She has been hesitant to go off beyond the immediate perimeter. Now, this perimeter is being opened up and reshaped with much fanfare, and she is dismayed.

But I am not worried. I'm building an autobiography right in my yard. Traces of me all over the place with everything I choose, every rock I position.

This work would have been done slowly by the two of us, just a few years ago. I'd decide on something or other. Hubby would try to talk me out of it. I'd insist. He'd balk. Finally, I would find something that we could compromise on. Frankly, it would never be just what I had had in mind. And so it would continue for each small or big project.

But we are in a new state now. We have become fragile. We no longer try to do things ourselves. We call experts, and we negotiate with them what is possible; compromise if it is too expensive and elaborate; try to do what is doable and still  live up to our overall vision.

Did I say Our Vision?
I meant My Vision.
Though, it is newly retouched, by everyone we talk to, even my loving husband who insists on interpreting my thoughts to the men with machines. I've learned to put my foot down when I need to.

Before we even had this project, we had talked ourselves out of another that included a swim in place pool, a necessity we both could appreciate.  Hubby had other priorities at that time, visioning changes that would have transformed the garage into a pool room. He called people, consulted, received estimates, and then balked at the cost and the possible liability of the project.  It turns out that a pool needs to be in its own building, so the fumes and the humidity do not affect the rest of the house.  A pool room would have cost us more than the cost of driving down to Gold Beach where we swim in a hotel pool for peanuts a day, with no liabilities and no maintenance.

 When a noted landscaper showed up and prepared an estimate to upgrade our front yard, we had already gone into shock a few times before. Hubby knows he and I cannot do any of this work any more. What we can do is get the place in good shape to age in place for the next ten or so years.

Our children will love to vacation on this coast after we leave this earth. Here, they can bring little ones and big ones and truly appreciate the great outdoors. By then, they will have forgotten what the place looked like before the upgrades. Lucky them!