My wife and I live in an 1800s home split into four separate apartment units. There’s a woman who lives above us who rearranges her living room daily, a guy in the adjacent unit who walks his cat on a leash and picks him up anytime someone comes within ten feet of it, and a kid and his girlfriend in the last apartment, who I don’t really see or hear much from.
The parcel the house sits on has no front yard, but the backyard is about 1,000 square feet—mostly a large cement driveway, a three-car garage/carport, and a narrow strip of “grass” that separates us from the neighboring house.
The previous landlord used to live in our unit, and he kept the grounds tidy. He even had a small 4×6 garden box where I assume he grew vegetables. By the time we moved in, the box was just full of weeds. The wood surrounding it was mostly rotten, and had a small bit of dilapidated chicken wire about 3 feet high to keep rabbits out.
Our new landlord never personally comes to the property, and in the summers… the weeds grow high and there’s this stupid tree shrub thing that grows into my walking path—poor me.
Back in early spring, when the temperature finally hit 60 for the first time in Michigan, I came home and parked in the driveway to find my upstairs neighbor and his girlfriend outside by the garden box. She sat on the cement, “criss-cross apple sauce” and watched him work. The garden box had been weeded and dug up!
I introduced myself to my newly acquainted neighbors: Parker and Annika (I texted their names to my wife immediately cause I don’t do so well with those). Parker seemed hopeful he would grow some vegetables this year, and I told him, “Bully for you! The place could use some love.” I went inside and thought about offering them a beer, but for some reason, I didn’t. They seemed to be enjoying each other just fine without me.
That weekend, I heard a lot of hammering going on outside but assumed it was the far neighbor’s yard, as they were having their siding replaced that week. Monday morning, I went out back to my parked car and saw that the garden box had been “renovated”!
“Renovated” is forgiving, though… I laughed at it, actually. This newly fashioned garden box came with a variety of overlapping and mismatched 2x4s, shiny new, varying-height chicken wire, and lots of nails! Everything was nailed! I’ve never seen so many nails!!!
It was safe to say this wasn’t the type of work that was in Parker’s wheelhouse of skills.
I felt bad at first, kind of embarrassed for him. Then I felt like a cynic and an ass. Parker chose to do something—when I would have chosen to do nothing. I choose to do nothing a lot.
I don’t think Parker is naive either—he didn’t really care if he had the skills to make the garden box new or not! He just knew he needed someplace to grow his vegetables and that he could shine it up with new boards and chicken wire! And guess what? It frickin’ works! It holds dirt and it keeps the bunnies out and can clearly grow some vegetables this summer!
I like Parker—I’ll take him a beer next time. And I’m trimming that stupid tree-shrub thing this year—I don’t care if I have to do it with kitchen scissors.
– Wyatt H.
Wyatts Hobby Photos 