I am crouched on the living room rug at 10:14 pm, flashlight from my phone tucked under the couch because the new kitten decided the one useful thing in my whole apartment was a dust bunny behind the radiator. She is a tiny brick of blue fur, warm and suspicious, vibrating like a very small motor....
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She was under the couch, two paws gripping the edge like she was holding on for dear life, and I was on the floor at 2:14 a.m. Trying to gently coax a very British Shorthair kitten named Miso with a sock toy that smelled faintly of my gym bag. Chicago wind howled outside the window in Lincoln...
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I was kneeling in dirt at 7:18 p.m., rain threatening, staring at a patch of stubborn brown under the big oak where nothing but dandelions seems to want to live. The street lamps in Lorne Park had that orange halo, cars hissed by on Lakeshore Road, and I was cursing a bag of premium seed that, at...
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I was kneeling in the dirt at 7:30 a.m., shirt already damp with sweat because the sun finally poked out behind low clouds, and my neighbor's morning commute down Lakeshore Road sounded like a distant train. The backyard under our big oak looked like a crime scene: bare patches, dandelions the...
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I was on my hands and knees between two patchy strips of sad grass, dirt under my nails, watching a delivery truck creep by on Lakeshore Road like it was mocking me. It was 7:14 p.m., the air still sticky from a late July heatwave, and the backyard under our ancient oak had reverted to its usual...
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I am on my knees in ankle-deep mud, rain still clinging to the sleeves of my hoodie, staring at a patch of backyard the size of a coffee table that refuses to be a lawn. A final clump of dandelions comes away under my fingers and the roots look like they have been laughing at me for years. It is...
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I was kneeling in the dirt at 7:12 a.m., coffee cooling beside me, staring at a patch of stubborn yellow weeds under the big oak that looks over our backyard. A neighbour's pickup rattled down Lorne Park Road, someone somewhere started a leaf blower too early, and I had dirt under my nails like a...
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I am kneeling on my driveway at 7:12 p.m., sweat cooling fast in the shade of a giant oak that eats my backyard light, watching a crew fold their tarps the way people fold maps when they're lost. The truck is still idling; someone jokes about the QEW traffic while the neighbor across the lane...
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I was on my hands and knees under the oak at 7:12 a.m., dirt under my nails, staring at a half-open bag of "premium" grass seed that felt like a $800 mistake. The driveway still had the evening's Mississauga traffic rumble in the distance, a garbage truck idling two houses down, and maple leaves...
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I was kneeling in the dirt at 7:12 p.m., shirt muddied, cheeks stinging from wind that smelled faintly of lake water and pizza from a delivery bike passing on Lakeshore Road. A squirrel watched from the low branch of the big oak like it owned the place. My backyard under that oak looked exactly...
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I was kneeling in cold, damp dirt at 7:30 a.m., staring at what used to be the nicer half of my backyard and wondering how the oak tree could win every year. The grass under that thing looks like a crime scene: thin, patchy, a stubborn mat of dead blades and weeds. I had soil on my hands, on my...
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I was crouched under the old oak at 7:12 a.m., rain starting to mist down, my hands stained with a mix of compost and regret. A soggy packet of "premium" Kentucky Bluegrass seed lay open on the porch step while the backyard, three feet away, stubbornly refused to be a lawn. Just weeds and a patchy...
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I am on my knees in ankle-deep mud, rain still clinging to the sleeves of my hoodie, staring at a patch of backyard the size of a coffee table that refuses to be a lawn. A final clump of dandelions comes away under my fingers and the roots look like they have been laughing at me for years. It is...
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I was kneeling in the dirt at 7:12 a.m., socks damp from the morning dew, staring at a patch the size of a small coffee table where nothing green wanted to live. There was a ring of crushed acorn husks, the big oak’s roots twisting under the soil like the veins of some slow animal, and the wind...
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I was squatting under the big oak in my backyard at 5:30 PM, trying to pry a fist-sized clump of crabgrass out of the roots, when the first real rain of the week started to spit against the leaves. Mud on my knees, phone in my back pocket buzzing with another spam call from a "landscaping offer" I...
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I was on my knees in wet soil at 7:12 AM, mud under my nails, watching a maple seedling try to colonize the one patch of dirt that refuses to be grass. The backyard smelled like wet earth and the faint exhaust from the Hurontario traffic two blocks over, and I had just realized that I almost...
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I was on my knees at 7:15 a.m., dirt under my nails and a coffee gone cold on the porch railing, poking at a stubborn patch under the old oak while a garbage truck rattled down the street. The neighbor's dog barked like it was auditioning for a movie. My plan for a "simple" front yard redo had...
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