Michael Graves On Everything Else*

When we bought our house, some twelve years ago, it had a largish deck in the back yard. It was in several levels and built along side a mature Pecan tree that remains the centerpiece of the property. We really like that Pecan tree. Our best guess is that it’s around 90 years old.

The lower-most level of the deck was covered. This made perfect sense since the Pecan drops shedloads of junk at different times of year. What we didn’t really understand was why the deck, which occupied most of the back yard, was as large as it was. It left precious little room for grass.

Some years later we rebuilt the back deck, making smaller so we could have a little more grassed yard. After rebuilding the deck we had new sod put in the back yard.  Not long after the sod was installed it started to rain. That summer it rained every day for over seven weeks. Not continuously, but every day. It was enough that our new back yard literally downed. Apparently sod doesn’t like that much water.

We didn’t do anything to remedy the back yard for quite some time. Over time we noticed over time that very little grew around the Pecan tree. In fact, if you think back, you probably can’t recall seeing a Pecan with lovely grass leading up to it’s trunk. That just doesn’t seem to happen in nature. Pecan leaves are both plentiful and highly acidic. They assure that not much will grow around a Pecan. It’s a natural form of protection.

The past two years Texas has been in a very serious drought. This took quite a toll on the yard and the garden. However, Stella has recently put a lot of effort into reviving the garden. Last spring we had the Boxwoods removed from the front yard, replacing them with bi-level brick flower beds planted with roses and various annuals. This spring the side and back gardens have started to look pretty good, too.

This past week Stella decided that we would once again have sod put down in the back yard. This time we had the landscape company level the yard and install drains to ensure that excess water would run off to the storm sewers.

This morning the company came to do the work. They’ve done a pretty good job. However, the last portion they had to do in a hurry…while it’s barely rained in weeks, today it seems that a thunder storm has spun up and it’s now raining quite seriously.

I’m sure that somewhere a minor deity, or perhaps demon, is laughing at us.