The Monster Bushes

Have you ever bought a few bushes for your yard only to find that the plant information was misleading? We did. I have decided that when they said the bush would not exceed 3 feet in height that they meant it would not grow more then 3 feet a month. That would better explain the monster bushes that we planted under our front living room window. Many visitors to our house June through October do not even know we have a front window.  Sometime I forget, and I live here!

So every Autumn I head out front with newly sharpened sheers and attack the monster bushes, a job that takes several hours of the course of a couple of days. The bushes have to be cut. The branches have to be cut up and put in the bags to be collected on Monday afternoon.

As with all things it would go faster if I did it on my own and sent Cowboy off to play elsewhere or put him in front of the TV. I choose not to do this because I believe that he is always learning and I want him to learn that fun or not, some things have to be done. I do not want him to learn that he can sit ideally by and not part take in life. I want him to understand that maintaining a home is something that has to be done and is not something that magically gets done. He learns this by watching and helping me. If he is not helping with the physical labor aspect of the job he is helping by keeping me company and talking to me.

Another very important lesson that he is learning is that work can be a reward. After we have mutilated cut down the bushes we are left with several long straight sticks and a lot of thin flexible branches. What does one do with all of it? Maybe it could be a fort? Hmm, just maybe. 

I took the long thick branches and stood them together and intertwined the ends and wrapped a thin flexible branch around the top. I left the rest to Cowboy. He took the rest of the discarded branches and piled them up around the edges to make the walls. He wanted more room on the inside so I climbed inside and pushed the walls out a bit. When it was all done there was enough room for both of us to sit inside and was about 4 and a half feet deep.

For the record it stood through a thunder storm, windy days and four little boys running around, climbing in, out and on it. After about a week and a half, when the leaves started to wilt and the newness wore off we took it down and bagged it up.