Thrilled with My Neighbors

Sometimes I've felt lonely, but then this...

I had become overwhelmed with my yard work, not because I didn't feel I could do it, but that the incessant rains had come and spring sprang and despite the rain (or because of it) the plants and bushes and grass and vines just kept growing.

But little did I know that people in the neighborhood had actually been watching out for me. Yesterday, they came by, one by one, and just started working in my yard. They had talked about it with one another, but only mentioned to me that they would be by yesterday...

Front of House Before the trimming.
Kristie is on the left. Beth is on the right.

This is the front of my house, the front porch, and what you see is the west flowerbed, which is just overgrown. Vines have climbed up through the roof eaves. My neighbor Kristie is on the left and my neighbor Beth (from one street North is on the right. When I got a knock on my front door yesterday morning, I opened it to see Beth down the steps and clipping vines.

Front of House
showing flowerbed on
the right side of the
porch.

And here is the East flowerbed to the right of my porch, before the work was completed. The other flowerbed on the right, while not as overgrown is full of vines and bushes that only hides the house.

While Beth and Kristie were working I got out my lawnmower and mowed the grass in the front yard. I later ran the string trimmer around in places. Their help inspired me to work. It did not feel so overwhelming, and it sure increased my already strong feeling that here in the South neighbors care about their neighbors. But it's more. It's their humanity and kindness. In fact, as we were working the couple from next door came out and talked to us on their way for a walk. Keep in mind this is during the pandemic, and so we all visited with each other from our respective distances. One of my first friends just on the other side of the next-door neighbors also came up for a visit. Sharon and I go all the way back (as friends) to when I first arrived and we encountered each other before dawn, when she would take her dog out for a walk.

Here are two more pictures of the result of the work.

This is Sid who
lives on the other
street across from Beth

Notice how all the large bushes that were obscuring the porch are now gone. Kristie worked for hours to cut the bushes and pulling off the vines, and then Sid, the man in the orange shirt from one street over came back with Beth when she took her dog home and he helped do cutting, down into the depth of the flowerbed. He worked a concrete birdbath disk from the undergrowth and we struggled to get it onto the porch where it sits, waiting to be cleaned. I will need to get down in the flowerbed (which is mostly volunteer trees that grew up in the bed from the roots that slithered underground from the neighbor's street across the driveway. But this is the South; it's wet, warm, and everything grows without having to be coaxed. So I hope that with all the neighbors' help I can take it from here and dig the plant out of the flowerbed, and turn it into just grass, as I did with the flowerbed on the rightsize of the porch under the window.

This is after the East side of the front yard was done In all, I just wanted to show how helpful, kind, and friendly people are in my chosen town in the deep south.

And here we are in the month of memorial celebrations; one origin story for Memorial Day involves Columbus, MS, which was a hospital town during the Civil War, and even when Union soldiers took over the town, the towns people opened their homes and their hospitals to the wounded and Friendship cemetery to the war dead—both Union and Confederate...