If I’ve learned one concept in my years as a gardener and homeowner, it is this: Enjoy your borrowed landscape.
I was at my cousin’s new house the other day. It overlooks a golf course, with rolling hills and green, green fairways. “What a beautiful view,” I exclaimed, “and you don’t have to mow it.”
From my front porch I see a slice of the Nittany mountains as the trees start to turn their fall colors. But I won’t have to rake up a leaf.
Since the day I moved in, I have enjoyed the wild cherry branches that drape in front of my bedroom windows, first their blossoms, then their tiny fruit. But the tree is in my neighbor’s yard, and he’s the one who has to prune it.
All around Pleasant Gap, when Sandy and I take our twice daily walks, I can enjoy the efforts of the neighbors who go all-out for seasonal decorations. My feeble attempt stands at the gate, a recycled slate from Fleur-de-Lys and a minuscule butternut (and the only one) grown in my garden. Sandy likes it well enough; it is his first lift-leg stop of many on our strolls.
One of my favorite houses in Pleasant Gap is a stone beauty, one of those rambling houses that would be great for a growing family—not for my life as it is now. A magnificent oak welcomes everyone to the front stoop. It wasn’t until the other day that I truly appreciated the borrowed landscape of this property. It’s a joy to see, to walk past, to admire. But there, in the driveway, were assorted leaf bags and 10—yes, TEN—5-gallon buckets of acorns!
I grew up in “the country” with several oak trees and we never once raked up the acorns. We let the squirrels and chipmunks get ‘em. I guess when you live “in town” there is a different standard—and that many acorns littering the sidewalk couldn’t be safe for us pedestrians. Not a chore I want to borrow in this lifetime. Laurie Lynch
The Borrowers: One of Marina’s and Richard’s favorite series when they were growing up was The Borrowers, about a tiny family that lived in the walls and under the floorboards of an English house. Author Mary Norton’s characters would “borrow” items and repurpose them to survive. We had a “Borrowers” house on Hottenstein and Richard wrote a story about the Hottenstein Borrowers for a school project. He came home after turning in his creation, dejected. His story was supposed to be fiction, he told me, “and the Borrowers are true.”
Well, here it is, many, many years later, and my adult children are still Borrowers. Over the years they have borrowed and adopted a new country—Belgium. In 2021, they both became Belgian citizens. They still, of course, retain their U.S. citizenship.
Still a Small World: Last week Richard was walking through Ghent’s central square, the Korenmarkt, when he ran into an old friend he met in Brazil. Kim, who lives in Brussels, was a Rotary Exchange Student in Brazil the same year Richard was (2009-10). Her boyfriend is directing a play in Ghent. Kim ended up inviting Richard to be her guest at the play that night.
Halloween Borrower: Halloween is a fairly low-key holiday in Belgium compared to how it is celebrated in The States. But that doesn’t stop my granddaughter Lais from indulging. She will be a witch at her school party—the cutest one I’ve ever seen—if you will let me indulge in my grandmotherly prejudices.
Fleur-de-Blog 