I took a week off from blogging last week for a number of reasons. One was that I was having trouble getting my mind around topics. Another was being in sort of a strange set of moods that have made concentration rather difficult. Yet again, and probably the root cause of the other two is either spending large amounts of time with someone (no time to write) or no time at all (no motivation to write). In any event, I think that I have some balance back.
Those of you that read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River. It was a rural sort of place that did not particularly appreciate education, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.
Dad was sort of obsessive about the lawn. We had a big yard, the front being the largest and the back second, with the sides being somewhat smaller but still large by most standards. The problem was that we had lots of large trees. In the front were two post oaks, a hackberry (that was hollow at the bottom), a mockernut hickory (one with really sweet nuts, unlike many mockernuts), and a papershell pecan.
The side on the south had a walnut tree that I planted, and the back had two large walnut trees. The side on the north had a very tall pine and a redbud tree. All of that shade made it sort of hard to grow grass.
