Throughout the Year(s)

Based on the past few days it seems that Utah has decided once again to skip Spring and launch straight into the summer. For many people, summer is the best time to have a backyard. It means firing up the grill, eating outside, chilling on the porch, maybe playing in the pool, and enjoying warm summer nights. For kids, it could mean running through the sprinklers, spraying each other with the hose, playing with bubbles, jumping on the trampoline, or even just sitting in a nice puddle of mud.



However, I have lived in Utah long enough to know that it could snow next week. If/when that happens, does that signal an end to backyard fun? Of course not! When life gives you snow, you make a snow man! Or a snow fort. Or a snow angel. Or anything you want to. That, I think, is part of the magic of childhood. You do some exploring, take a look at what's around you, and have fun with it. It's something that kids are good at; something that comes naturally, and yet, it's something that we sometimes tend to become worse at as we grow older.



In a lot of ways, I still consider myself a kid. While we all have to grow up sometime, I think there are a lot of childlike qualities that we would do well to hold on to. After all, if you lose it completely, how are you going to teach your children how to build a snow man?

Charlie

It's nice having a good-sized backyard, because it is very hard to raise an "indoor" pig. This is the late Charlie, a pot-bellied pig who lived a long, full life and died of old age several years ago. When he was a piglet, we tried to keep him inside. It was a lot of fun for all of my cousins and I. Pigs really do make great pets...



...until they break into the cupboards and start eating the flour. Shortly after this incident, Charlie became an "outdoor" pig, which worked out great because he ate all of the under-ripe and rotten apples off of our lawn after they'd fallen from the tree.

Also important to keep in mind: pigs are difficult to house-train.

Fetch!

These days if you look out the window into the back yard, chances are that you will see my dad playing with his dog, Todd. Well, that is admittedly exaggerated, but this event takes place at least once a day, almost without fail. Todd seems to have no greater joy than when he is chasing the segment of thick rope that my dad throws around the yard, jumping over fences when it gets thrown too far and sometimes crashing into things in his enthusiasm. His favorite game (and the one that I find most amusing) is as follows: My dad puts the rope in a tree and Todd springs after it relentlessly until he's caught it. Sometimes this requires many attempts:



The funniest part is, I'm not sure who gets more enjoyment out of this: man, or his best friend.

Mowin' da Lawn

As with nearly all things in life, there are pros as well as cons to having a large backyard. This week's entry is about one of the cons. Having a big lawn is great as a kid. It gives you more room to run around and chase animals and other children, more room to jump through the sprinklers and spray each other with the hose and all of those great things. If you're willing to risk hopping fences and broken windows, you can even play a game of baseball! The more space you have, the more your legs are allowed to keep up with your imagination and it's all fun and games…until someone has to mow it.

I love the smell of freshly-cut grass as much as the next guy, but I've never been a huge fan of mowing the lawn. In fact, I don't think anyone ever has been except for Forrest Gump, and that's just because he had a riding mower. Well, that might not be completely true…I thought it was terribly novel and exciting the first time I was old enough the mow the lawn. I think I even enjoyed the second time, too! By the third time, I'd had enough. But I shouldn't complain…it's a small price to pay for warm weather and greenery, right? I'll leave you to decide for yourself, but first I'll give the final word to James Dent:

"A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken."

Olden Times

I decided I was long overdue for some older pictures. This is what the backyard looked like around twenty years ago.



My dad loves to garden. I'm not sure why that didn't transfer over to me; I didn't even like most vegetables until I turned nineteen. However, I did enjoy the pumpkins that my parents grew some years for Halloween!

Tree at my Window

My father planted this tree decades ago when he first moved into the house. Now at over fifty feet tall, it towers over the yard, swaying with the breeze and standing as a living landmark of years past. A glance out of any window on the Eastern side of the house reveals its form silhouetted against the sky.



Tree at my Window by Robert Frost

Tire Swing

Is there anything as classically simple as a tire swing? When it comes to playground equipment, I submit that there is not! (Especially the vertically-hanging variety, as seen here.) To me, the tire swing serves as a reminder of how anything at all - even things that most people would normally consider garbage - can be the best toy ever in the eyes of a kid. Does it matter that it was found on the side of the road? Not really - as long as you can swing on it.

Remember when the best thing about getting a new refrigerator was getting to play in the box? I sure do. My brother and I turned ours into a space shuttle.

The Tree House

I suppose "tree platform" might be a more accurate description. It was going to be more of a house at some point, but unfortunately it never made it to that stage of development. I realized how convenient it is to have a roof when I left a shoebox full of comic books in the tree house and, returning the next day, discovered that their pages were severely warped with water damage. Nevertheless, I am pretty fond of this little fort. The "house" itself may not be particularly impressive, but throughout the years it has proven to be an outstanding chill spot.

Fortress of Solitude

The best thing about the tree house is that it was a quiet place that I could retreat to without leaving home. Whenever I was feeling overly stressed or angry or confused, it was always refreshing to climb up, get some fresh air, and just sit in the tree for a while to think. I think most people would agree that spending time outdoors, removed from the complications of our fast-paced, high-tech society, can be very beneficial. There are plenty of ways through which one can do that, be it biking, hiking, fishing, or whatever. For me, it was usually enough just to head out back, pet the goats, and spend some quality time among the branches.

Goats!

If you have some open space behind your house, why not fill it with a couple of goats? That seems to be our philosophy. They are much cheaper than horses, and low maintenance to the extreme! You can't ride them, of course, but what they lack in utility they make up for with their quirky charm.

Crazy Kids

Old cartoons would lead you to believe that goats will eat anything, including old tires and tin cans. This is only half true. There are plenty of things that goats can't possibly eat. That doesn't mean, however, that they won't try! Especially when they are young, they will at least taste anything they can get their mouths on, including rope, construction tools, fingers, and your favorite jacket. (They will rarely pass up an opportunity to gnaw on your shoelaces.) They also love to climb on anything and everything. In fact, if you bend down on all fours, they will probably climb onto your back. This may not be true of all breeds, but from what I've seen, goats are as eccentric as they come.

Old Goats

Unfortunately, the playful nature of these animals seems to fade as they grow older. Perhaps it is because their horns and beards grow in and they begin to take themselves too seriously. If they have large horns, they tend to act more aggressive and less accommodating, trying to assert their egocentric dominance by ramming and hooking things with their prongs. They can be fun to wrestle with, but if you have anything damageable in your yard, they can be a little problematic. If you've every heard someone called an "old goat" before, there was probably some vexation tied to that comment.

Overall, goats can be a lot of fun...if you have the extra space and really like animals. If not, it's probably better to get a puppy. But if nothing else, growing up with goats made going into the backyard that much more adventurous.

Looking back...

So... what's the big deal? Is this backyard really so special that it merits its own blog? That is a fair question, especially if you know what this piece of ground looks like:



Yes, I know... it doesn't exactly resemble the green pastures of Hobbiton. In fact, it looks a lot more like the residential section of Mordor.
I assure you, it looks a lot more inviting in the Spring.

Regardless of how it looks, however, it was the environment of exploration and discovery that made it a remarkable place to spend my childhood. It was home to a clubhouse, a trampoline, a treehouse, a pitchers' mound, a little orchard and a garage full of antiques and old treasures. Dogs and cats lounged around with goats and pigs. My brother and I could play any game we wanted to, from baseball to Power Rangers, and we did! One day we decided to build an underground fort in a dirt clearing in the very back, so we got some shovels and started digging. We didn't get much further than a foot into the soil before we realized how much work it would require, but there are still signs of that self-dug crater today. When they dig up the garden in fifty years, I imagine they will find a plethora of shoeboxes containing the dear remains of gerbils and tree frogs. Those were the days.

When I think back to the time I spent outside as a boy, my mind will sometimes reflect on my favorite comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes. Fans of the strip are familiar with the vast wooded landscape where Calvin had adventures (and deep philosophical conversations) with his plush tiger. I'm sure that the forests and streams that inspired the comic's author, Bill Watterson, are much more impressive than the comparatively tiny plot of land where I grew up. But I like to think that our experiences were, at least to some degree, similar. To me, the backyard was a place to explore, to enjoy, to experience. It was, perhaps, the most tangible way to interact with the world and all of its possibilities.

Living Room

When my father first moved to West Jordan, Utah in 1979, it was a frontier. Bangerter Highway, which lies little more than a stone's throw to the East of my family's home of over thirty years, had not yet been built. To the West was nothing but spacious fields and large trees, and if you traveled South you wouldn't find much more. it was, for all intensive purposes, the edge of civilization.
The street where I grew up is divided on both sides into one-acre lots, providing the opportunity for residents to raise horses and livestock, and earning it the nickname "the horse-acres." My family never did have a horse, but we have had pigs, goats, peacocks, rabbits, dogs and cats and many other pets. Sometimes when we look out the kitchen window we will see an urban cowboy and his horse sauntering down the asphalt road.
These days West Jordan is much less a frontier and much more a sprawling city of suburbs and subdivisions, reaching further and further into the West and expanding the Salt Lake City metropolitan area. This growth has made it the fourth-largest city in the state and opened up new economic and recreational opportunities for thousands of people. At the same time, though, it is not uncommon for new developments to be sectioned off into quarter-acre lots or smaller, barely big enough for a house and a tiny back yard. Am I contending that it is wrong to live on a small piece of land? Not at all. What I WOULD like to do is rejoice in the great privilege that I had to grow up in an environment of stillness, space, and exploration, and ponder the impact that this environment had on shaping my childhood.