We all need some manure in our lives

Stomping manure is not my favorite exercise, but it had to be done, and I was the girl for the job.

Last Friday I spent a great deal of time dancing on top of manure as if at a grape-crushing party. Of course, I didn't do it in my bare feet. That would be some kind of pedicure! I did it in an old pair of sneakers that are very likely to end up in the garbage can by the curb in the near future.

Why did I develop this intimate relationship with animal waste? I was putting in a winter lawn. And considering that I gave up on my summer lawn last winter - because I believe with all my heart that bermuda grass is what grows in hell - putting in fresh grass was quite the exciting if exhausting venture.

I scalped the demon grass by hand where it persisted in several patches across the yard despite the fact that I have neglected it for months. I used a hard rake to scrape up the disaffected soil. I spread seed and fertilizer as my Yorkie attacked my manual spreader, making the seed dump out in piles that I later hand-tossed. The flexible rake was then used to spread my seed and fertilizer more evenly.

Then came the manure, five bags of it. I knew pretty quick that a. I was dang tired already as I hugged the smelly bags and tried to distribute them evenly, and b. that I didn't have nearly enough excrement to go around my big yard. I tried my best with what I had, shaking out clumps of manure and the occasional wood chip and large rock. In the end my paltry if incredibly stinky supply of manure was not enough to keep the birds away from my seed.

So that afternoon after a shower that couldn't possibly make me feel clean, I purchased more manure, 15 bags of it exactly, to dump on my yard, keeping the birds, our neighbors and our neighborhood's roaming cats away.

My darling husband and son lugged the heavy bags into the yard, spacing them out nicely. And that evening I cut open the bags with my demoted kitchen scissors and dragged them in a snake pattern across small areas. Again I grabbed my soft rake and spread that manure out beautifully. As I spotted large miscreant clumps, I stomped on them mightily and repeatedly, figuring that if my arms could be so weary with this labor of yard love, then my legs might as well be, too.

It was my first time attempting a winter lawn. Would all my work be for naught?

This whole week I have watched my yard between deep waterings, waiting for some sign of new life. And this whole week I have been struggling with a loss of hope in other, more vital areas of my life. I needed to see the little blades of rye grass in an almost spiritual way. I needed some symbol of hope, some payoff for all my imperfect but valiant efforts.

And yesterday I saw them, appearing overnight it seemed, sage green, delicate sprouts. Gorgeous and very welcome they were! My hope was renewed with them. My heart swelled with pride for my work. I showed them to my kids and man excitedly, gratefully. I paroled the perimeter of my yard with my Yorkie, bending down to peer sideways into new, tiny life.

For days I had stared at a yard full of manure anxiously, seeing only that seed had not, and possibly would not, sprout. And now? Fulfillment of promise.

My yard is a lesson in life, I think. At least I got something deeper from it. As I reflected on my relief and joy in a new lawn yesterday, I realized that we human beings need seeds of a good life planted, too, by God, our parents, our teachers and other role models, and we definitely need the fertilizer of compassion, education, experience, and good relationships. But we also need manure, those often stinky and sticky situations, those many challenging and often unexpected times, that occasional or frequent interior turmoil. We need those things even if they obscure the seed and the fertilizer for a while, because in the end we spring up fuller and taller and stronger than we were before. We become resilient.

And we appreciate the little things in life, like a winter lawn, even more.

All the world's a backyard...and it's full of weeds and mud

I was digging my nails into the soil with brutal determination, clawing at the thatched Bermuda grass to get at the weed stubs while my kids made a splash mud pad beneath the slide with the hose. I only turned to growl at them on every third or fourth weed I pulled, angry that they had yet again turned my yard work into messy, muddy happy hour.

My kids weren't really to blame for my bad mood, to be fair. They had only exacerbated it with their shenanigans. No, my bad mood was directed at the world at large. I was feeling bad about my fellow human beings, which people have the right to do with temporary abandon now and then. Just the day before, you see, I had read the news.

Then right after, I had read celebrity news. That's a little like wandering the sewers for pleasure, grinning like an idiot, sipping on a martini and smoking a fat cheap cigar. In the end, it all just reeks, you're definitely going to feel a little sick afterwards, and you'll never quite feel like you've cleaned off the filth.

So you can see how the pulling of the weeds became an analogy for my worldview. My yard, you see, is rife with weeds. They're choking out the grass and have long since gone to seed. I only managed this Spring to eradicate them from my plant borders. And I comforted myself as I campaigned against them in the wider yard that I was at least aerating my yard with my dogged labor.

Wish I could aerate the world sometimes.

As for my kids' labor of love, the mud bath, it was mostly my eldest son's doing. I should have known better than to take him up on his offer to water the ground, so I could pull the weeds more easily. The ground didn't get watered all that much. The concrete patio did, the slide did, and I did, but the place where I was actually laboring on two-foot tall weeds - not so much. Kids and a hose...well, that's bound to mean trouble. It means there will be running and screaming and terrorizing of siblings, followed by loads of mud, then the removal of caked shoes and browned socks so that bare feet can squelch in freshly dug holes in the yard. Everyone will end up soaked and grimy, and the baby will get in the midst of it all, mud plastered up to the knees on his overalls, his blue eyes wide at the promising prospect of this newly discovered joy.

I was in a foul temper, shouting at the kids to stop their mud slinging, when Matthew came home. I didn't rise from my weed-pulling to give him the kiss he deserved, so he retreated back inside to change out of his work clothes, only calling through the bathroom window, "So what's for supper?"

Supper-schmupper. I hate supper.

I paused, draping a muddy hand over my knee, and called out boldly, "Okay, I'm not going to hide it anymore - I hate making supper. After all that happens during the day..."

I trailed off, but Matthew already had his response ready.

"So when did you ever try to hide it?" he asked with a laugh.

"I've tried before," I answered grumpily. "I've made some good meals..."

I couldn't remember any examples off-hand, but I knew it was true. There had been a few solid meals here and there that didn't involve plopping all manner of stuff out of a can, forking salad out of a bag or shaking cheese and noodles from a box. But, really, people need to understand a fundamental truth for some of us humans - making a meal at the end of the day, it's like Purgatory after a hard life. A messy life where little leprechauns, cute as hell, follow you around and dump just picked-up toys out of the cupboard, unroll miles of paper towels in order to dance on them, dump their lunch on the floor with a what-you-gonna-do-about-it nonchalance, and spill gallons of milk and juice every day.

"I'll start supper," said Matthew, my hero. "I don't mind."

And, after all, why should he? I was pulling weeds. I haul out trash, too, and handle recycling - both typical "man duties". Hey, I prefer doing them myself; I'm a liberated woman (don't know exactly from what...), and I'm only trying to liberate Matthew as well, so that we can live in peace and harmony like a retro Coca-Cola commercial.

Besides, I still had more weeds to wrest from the yard and some little leprechauns to haul out of the mud and bathe. In my way, I was about to make the world a slightly better place. I just hoped there would be a good meal waiting for me when I was done.