A Year of Gratitude – May 22, 2024

I found my gratitude outside and inside the farmhouse today. I spent a long day working outside with my mom. We were treated to a sunny day with warm temperatures. We made the most of it.

Our riding mower has been out of commission, so mowing the yard meant calling the push mower into duty. With more than 3 acres of land, mowing this way sure does help me to get in plenty of steps!

We did a bit of leveling around the stone wall planter that sits in front of the farmhouse. You can see that in this photo. This planter was here when we moved in. It’s such an interesting shape and the only stone structure on the grounds.

We have changed so much about the landscape of this old farmhouse, but this planter has stayed right where we found it nearly 20 years ago. We’ve done a lot to adjust the look of it through the boxwood hedge and the perennials planted inside, but the structure has stayed the same.

This year, it was time to bring in some compost and level out the ground around it. It took a lot of shoveling and leveling, but I hope that it will help to preserve this planter for another few years.

I also hope that the newest perennial will grow into a striking feature. Last fall, we planted a fig tree in the middle. We hope that it will grow to fill the space in the middle and add some height to the planter.

When the day was done, I was tired, but I loved seeing how much work we had accomplished. For me, it’s the very best sort of exhaustion, to be tired from a day’s hard work outside. I’ll certainly sleep well tonight.

We celebrated our hard work with homemade iced coffees and cookies. It was a good day from start to finish and I was so grateful to have been a part of it and shared it with my mom.

This post is part of our A Year of Gratitude Series. You can find the introduction, inspiration, and entire year’s gratitude’s posts here.