The Land before Time

It is a beautiful, warm day, quite different from yesterday. I couldn't stand being inside anymore and took our dog Yara into the backyard with me. I let out a deep sigh as I looked around the wasteland the garden was right now, not having been cleaned up yet after summer. Huge sunflowers drooping their dried out big heads, looking sad and blind , as all their seeds had been picked out by the birds. That was a good thing, but dead sunflowers always make me sad, and these sun warriors needed to be taken down and recycled. The dry stalks cracked like so many dead bones under my feet. There was a slight and sweet wind, the sky overhead was a summer blue, and the air felt like fresh linen. I proceeded to take down the green beans towering over me on their skinny leg towers. The left over beans looked like something out of a fairy tale, too big, and too hairy. They were turning into dust in my hands, and I reflected, not without a fair amount of chagrin, on the days before my husband and son made computers and video games their main passion. Our garden never used to look like this,and last fall too, I was the one who started cleaning up the garden, tired of waiting for the guys to join me. I miss those days where we would spend the whole day outside, planting, cleaning, just filling our lungs with fresh air and good exercise. Now our garden looks abandoned, unloved, in the fall. In the summer it still looks good, because of all the flowers, and I am very grateful for that. I watered the green house, and it too was a pitiful sight. I smiled, because the spiders had taken over, so at least it was a good thing for them. I gave Yara a big bamboo stick and she trotted off happily. She reminds me more and more of myself. Strong, smart, full of energy and passion and having so much trouble expressing and controlling it effectively. She scares off other dogs when we take her for walks, yet she is incredibly kind and loving with us. I cannot take her for walks by myself, because she pulls so hard when she decides she sees another dog she wants to challenge, and I am strong, but she is stronger. So, I cannot take her, and that frustrates me ,because I would love the exercise, and she is frustrated because she and I both have to wait for my husband and son to accompany us. Too sad and weird. We are now thinking to get another Bouvier, so that maybe she will both calm down and able to walk more calmly, giving both her and me the chance at more peaceful walks, and also reduce the stress for my husband and son. Being outside did me good, made me realize how much work we have to look forward to this weekend. Right now, the place looks like the land before time, and it will be nice to change that before winter. Yara likes being outside with us, so at least she will get exercise running around from one end of the yard to the other, helping in her own way, with her cheerful energy. Bouvier have a lot of strength and energy, how I wish she had a little herd of cattle to keep in line, like her ancestry and breed was used to. I could use that myself, a small herd, as in a project or job to expand my energies in. Maybe that is on the horizon for both of us.