Here is a picture of our back yard taken from our deck.
It’s October, so there’s a little pumpkin hanging out celebrating the season.
At the bottom of the hill there are some woods. We used to live in a neighborhood. In the neighborhood I would send my children “out to play” only to have them return to the back door 30 minutes later and tell me there was nothing to do.
They were right. All the other kids in the neighborhood were at school. We lived on 1/20 of an acre. The swing set was fun for approximately 10.3 minutes. They couldn’t build, dig, hike or tear through the neighborhood on 4-wheelers.
You can only do so much with a yard in a neighborhood without getting a letter from the homeowners association. I understand that Homeowner Associations are good. They keep the neighborhood looking beautiful. They keep yards and lawns in unity and up to standards.
On the other hand, Homeowner’s associations and I didn’t get along.
- They didn’t like my garden.
- They didn’t like my children’s forts.
- They didn’t even like our new landscaping we added that they hadn’t approved first (oops).
I don’t miss the Homeowner’s Association. I’m pretty sure they don’t miss me either.
Out here we can do whatever we want with our yard without asking permission first. And we won’t even get a letter.
At the bottom of our backyard, just inside the woods, you can find almost everything we have thrown in our garbage cans in the last 4 years.
Our children think it is their duty to be sure everything that is broken, no longer wanted, or needed is re-purposed.
Our kids could teach classes on recycling.
Random pots, dishes, containers and…. telephones?
Salt shaker
No one can blame the Johns family for landfills. Oh no. We do not contribute to any land fill pollution. We throw all our garbage in our woods.
Our children like to fill their afternoons with lugging all our unwanted crap 500 feet down hill, placing it haphazardly around on old broken pieces of wood and calling it a “fort.” DH calls it “Sanford & Son.”
Someone cue the music! Dun-Dun-Dadant. Dun-Dun-Dandant-Dun-Dun-Dun.
Sanford and Son. Yup. That’s my backyard.
It drives DH CRAZY.
I like it. My kids don’t come to door after 30 minutes outside and I don’t get letters from the Homeowner’s Association anymore.
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Candi
