I've been working slowly but steadily on a 12 x 12 foot vegetable garden over the last few weeks. While I'm now at the planting stage (finally!), I want to be truly done before documenting the process on here, as the more I do, the more proud I become. So I wanted to take some time here to talk about the other 65,000 square feet of land.
One of the big attractions of our house to us was the sheer amount of space that it provided to us. Our whole garden in Leeds could easily fit in the small semi circle contained by our driveway, so the idea that we have 1.5 acres of space more just still boggles my mind. It's not until you get outside and look at the property from different angles that you get a feel for just how much space there is available to us. That, and when you get the push mower out, work for an hour and realize that while you have Wembley-worthy stripes, you've still only covered half of one lawn, with another 2 to go.
Once again, our neighbors have been incredibly helpful. Nicholas, a charming man from the Dominican Republic, came over on his ride on mower after watching me struggle against the high grass (lesson 1: mow sooner after the snow melts next year!) and offered me the use of his machine. I got on, put it in gear, and giggled at how quickly and easily I was getting the mowing done. I did come unstuck in the truly long grass (lesson 2: change the height of the cutter so you don't overheat your neighbor's machine), but it did mean that I got to hang out with Nicholas and his wife for a while and chat about the ins and outs of Strafford, teaching and coming to America. All interesting stuff. While he has offered us permanent use of his ride on mower, I think I've now persuaded my wife to get one of our own (lesson 3: wait patiently before asking for the next big power tool/machine).
While this has been going on for the last week or so, the main inspiration for todays' post was Jake's birthday party today. It was the first proper one that we've had for him at our own home, so I was a little nervous about how it would work out. I was particularly nervous as we're now into the next of stage of putting down roots here: making our own friends. It was always going to be the case that we would find people with children of similar ages to Jake and Sophie, but today was the first time we'd hang out in a social setting rather than meeting at his school or T-ball games.
It turned out to be a great success, which is in part due to the sheer amount of space that we have outside. We discovered as we were setting up, that the house is beautifully designed for outdoor parties, with a great traffic flow from the kitchen and lower living room straight on the deck. We were able to set up a table of food on the deck, a table with a dozen chairs around it, Sophie's tent and play house and another dozen chairs elsewhere without really taking up too much space. This made me feel less bad about renting an enormous bouncy castle for the party; while it was huge, we put it on the side lawn and it seemed to just make sense of the space. The kids went absolutely nuts for it, and the combination of the bouncing and party food made the time fly. I stood there watching the flow of adults and kids and looked into the future of big get togethers (especially when my grill arrives! Lesson 4: buy local, but make sure they have it in stock! Currently on week 3 of waiting...) and chilled hang outs with our friends. While I'm proud and excited by my vegetable plot, the rest of the garden fills me with an equal amount of pleasure too.
