Gardening at Night

I know very little about gardening. It's one of those things that I hope to learn more about in the near future. I developed an interest in gardening when I actually owned my first house. Working full time and mothering children sort of squashed what little time and energy I had though. When I became a stay-at-homer and moved into a new house, I thought about it a lot again. We had a small front yard with no established landscape so I thought it would be the perfect time. I did manage to do a little with the front yard but by then my marriage was starting to fall apart and I just didn't care about the house or the yard much at all. I was struggling to stay afloat those days.

After the divorce, I went back to work and I no longer own much of anything! My dad actually owns my car and we rent our house. The actual owner of the house does NO yard work so even though this is a very nice neighborhood and the houses around here cost a lot...our yard looks like crap. We soooo look like the renters on the block...the little rough section of the hood. It really bothers me sometimes. I have often thought I would like to spruce things up in our front yard (we have been here 2.5 years) but I just can't seem to let myself spend the money or the time on someone else's yard. And it would take a serious amount of money to make the whole yard look any better. I look at the yard almost every day and think, "Man our yard looks like crap."

Tonight, as we were returning from the day's adventures, I discovered one little daffodil!! Beautiful little flower, shining in the night, right there beside the stairs. For some reason it made me feel really happy. Partly because I love any sign of spring in the middle of winter and partly because there is now something beautiful in our yard. One little flower. After I looked at the flower for a while, I took a good look at the dark yard and suddenly the trees started to look beautiful too! The air smelled really good and clean, the trees looked confident and wise, and I felt really calm on the inside.
Maybe I should learn how to garden at night! In any case, our yard may not look so good in the morning but tonight...our yard looks beautiful.