Looking forward to seeing you, grasshopper

 Life is about to change for the summer. That is of course if we ever GET to a summer season around here, but let’s not open on that line of chronic complaining this time around.

As I said, life is about to change for the summer. The change is vibrant, challenging, stubborn, bakes a mean cheesecake, leaves her bath towel on the floor, loves cats, has been known to leave three days worth of cereal dishes in her room but does her own laundry, stays up later than a vampire, carries an interesting conversation, favors rap and most of all adores her mother.

In a week, Daughter #3 will be home from University and for the next 3 ½ months the chores of dishwasher and meal planner—and for the first time since I moved here nearly seven years ago—the job of lawn maintenance will fall to the youngest of my offspring. Woo Hoo! 

If Melody Beattie has taught me anything about letting go, it’s about giving up control of “Big John,” the most awesome lawn tractor on the planet.

Daughter #3 has been asking to cut the grass for years and I’ve been a control freak about doing it myself. I’m giving up the reins.

I texted her just now with the breaking news. I figured she would be as happy as a lark. All I got back was “Ew.” 

Go figure.

Little does Daughter #3 know—“Ew” or not—there also will be goose poop detail.

By mid-summer my farmyard is a magnet for the flock’s depository. Currently there is just one pair of geese that have staked claims in bare patches of grass near the barn as they feed up before the laying season.

Of course I didn’t help the situation any. The first time I spotted them here a week or so ago, I threw sunflower seeds all over the place to show my support for their arrival.

Stay they did. Feed them and they will come, you fool.

While I was away at work, the geese and several of their cousins wandered hither, pooping and sunning themselves in the most inconvenient place possible—at my back door. As luck would have it I didn’t notice the goosey green turds until I had walked through several of them in my work shoes.

I’m not sure if the poop was a way of saying “thank you,” sort of along the same lines as when I find the dead mouse on the same step after a cat leaves it there for me, suggestive of an oblige for free room and board.

Nonetheless I am pleased to see my feathered friends whose resilience in these unpredictable and unsavory snow days lead me to believe they know something warm and good is just around the corner.

And as far as my grasshopper is concerned, the mother in me looks forward to seeing you step off the plane with that overstuffed suitcase.

It will take a team of wild horses to keep me from running screaming across the tarmac, my arms wide open for hugs and my enthusiasm eager to tell you how much I look forward to having my dishes washed, my supper made, and the grass cut. 

But first let’s eat pizza and watch “chick flicks.”

Welcome home lovey!