Project: Take Back Eden: Day Two Hundred And Fifty Six

Is it clear that I’m using FEELINGS to measure time in this project? Feelings seem like as viable an alternative for measuring time as the capricious and tyrannical institutional handcuffs called “watches” by most. Oh, and when I say feelings, I’m not talking about EMOTIONS, I’m talking about muscle soreness and limb abrasions.

So anyway – so far all we’ve gotten done is bush-hacking. Five scraggly cedar bushes had far outgrown their intended height and demanded hacking, pulling, digging, sawing, and lots more hacking to come loose. Jaelyn and Addison both used croquet mallets to join in and help. Katie Sams brought us an entire croquet set from her Grandmother’s multiple-year-garage-sale from (insert your opinion of garage sales here and strengthen to either “heaven/hell”); she said when she unveiled the gift at the end of the summer, just before we moved out that it seemed like the sort of game my family would like.

I assured her that we would indeed LOVE croquet, privately imagining a day when we would hire a string quartet play Handel’s Water Music while we batted the ball through the gates wearing our most formal clothes.

I can’t say that I could foreknew the fury / vigor / delight that my children would have in wielding those mallets like wild animals against a fierce enemy. Complete with roars and grunts and snarly faces.

My friend Greg Snell, whose disappeared in Korea lately, his voice paused mid-epic like some haunting mystery, had always projected a master mural project in which he would balance an entire croquet set, bats and balls in heavy whirling splendour.

The outcome of our artistic ambitions? A circle of barren looking hedges, crater-sized pock marks, and a pile of foliage 6 feet tall and 30 feet in circumference. (note: said calculations are not legal tender. said author was kicked out of geometry class for an unfortunate incident involving chalk, whispering, and laughing, and has, since that day struggled to employ the formulas related to circumference or diameter.)

Today, peace comes in the relief from PROJECT: EDEN -- from the most unlikely (?) of sources -- the Full Babysitting Coop. We're having a puppet show & an obstacle course today. Good Times.

Hope you find your:

peace~