Together Work

This morning we went out and had an early family work bee in the yard. A has started "working out" two mornings a week in our own yard: moving wheelbarrow loads of garden goods, hoisting stones, digging holes for me, hacking bushes apart and other little homeownery, outdoor chores. It is so fun to have him chip in and the boys and I always try to put on our garden gloves and outdoor boots and join in. I am sure the neighbors must think we're crazy, all out there in the yard together at 7 AM but we're having fun, we're actually getting the outdoor work done and there's something so very seasonal about being out in the thick of it like that.

We've seen the first frost and the first leaf color firsthand, noticing all the tiny changes as they come because we're out there, saturated in it on those work mornings, breathing clouds of frosty steam and kicking through the first falling leaves. Another great bonus? When we finally come in, peeling off work gloves and stamping our feet, we bring our heartiest appetites to the breakfast table. Oatmeal never tasted so good!

Lately we've: dug the ephemeral summer bulbs and put them into the basement for storage, finished stacking the stone wall along the back property line, given the hedge one last trim for the year, and now the boys and A are busily stacking up a big pile of wintery kindling to heap into a cardboard box in the basement where it will dry out thoroughly waiting its turn by the fireside. I am thinking about tying them into little bundles with garden twine, would make transport easier and also look really cute.

This family-work is a new thing for us, we've historically been pretty thin on genuine group-efforts but somehow we've hit the right sort of activities and time-slot. It feels good to work together, not just play together...and it feels really right to be working as a group to manage and maintain our little plot of land....even if it is just a little farm in the city.