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Monday
March 15, 2010 Since 1922 |
Post-Ike malaise lingers
By Jane Howard Lee
Contributor Published August 13, 2009 Are you suffering from a post-Ike yard upkeep depression?
I am.
It isn’t the usual kind of depression. It is not the kind that the drug companies advertise pills to cure or that makes you want to do terrible things.
It is more of a malaise caused by a unwillingness to do anything that the next hurricane will undo.
My symptoms are pretty obvious in our backyard. Though the front has suffered as well.
Before Ike I liked keeping up with the backyard. We have a rather large one and I enjoyed doing some of the mowing, weed-whacking, trimming and even pulling up weeds. I liked to try new plants here and there, plant flowers in spots and carefully tend my potted plants.
I had a fondness for tacky yard art and have always hidden that tendency in the back where only invited guests can see it (and hopefully get a laugh). So we had big metal birds here and there and a concrete pelican and some big metal flowers and lots and lots of wind chimes.
I really like wind chimes.
There were big healthy-looking potted plants here and there, probably too many of them since most were on our porch and really took up too much room.
I have a fondness for benches and had a few scattered up on the porch and down in the yard (our backyard slopes away from the house so down in the yard is a correct way of saying that).
Then Ike headed our way.
A few days before landfall I started picking things up and putting them in the garage, just in case.
At first it was just things that blew easily (and thus were easy to pick up and move) like chair cushions and pool floats. As Ike got closer, I moved heavier and bigger things - potted plants that could easily be torn and tattered by a strong wind, for example.
As Ike showed no inclination to pass us by unscathed, I worked harder to put away the things that a hurricane-force wind could pick up and use to smash our windows or our heads. I had help by then and so we moved the outdoor furniture, the big potted plants, the things hanging on the deck posts (like thermometers and silly signs) and just about anything that could be moved or damaged by a big storm.
We’ve done all of this before, of course. We did it before Katrina and again before Rita. Everything that we moved into the garage we turned around and moved back out again pretty quickly.
Not this time.
With Ike, we had to wait a couple days for the water to recede, then wait until we had gotten all the debris out of the yard.
We worried more about getting the power back on and functioning while it was off than about making things look pretty again. Cutting up the downed trees (we lost 20 or so) took precedence over weeding the flower beds and decorating. Stuff in our flowerbeds died from being underwater, then buried in nasty rotting reeds and other materials that came out of the bayou behind our house and then ignored.
Somewhere along the way I lost the urge completely. The potted plants that survived did go back outside but I tended to forget about watering them so many died. The rest of the stuff is still piled up in the garage. Some of the landscaping is doing great - it’s hard to kill a hibiscus - but a lot of it is just dead or gone.
I haven’t really cared. I guess I just thought that another storm would come along and do it again so why bother. I’m trying to get over that.
We got our pool going again just recently and I am finally going to try to get the yard into better shape, try to do more than mow and whack the weeds. But I don’t think I will ever have so much decorative junk in my backyard as I did before Ike.
At least I hope not.
Jane Howard Lee is a reporter for The Baytown Sun.
Contributor Published August 13, 2009 Are you suffering from a post-Ike yard upkeep depression?
I am.
It isn’t the usual kind of depression. It is not the kind that the drug companies advertise pills to cure or that makes you want to do terrible things.
It is more of a malaise caused by a unwillingness to do anything that the next hurricane will undo.
My symptoms are pretty obvious in our backyard. Though the front has suffered as well.
Before Ike I liked keeping up with the backyard. We have a rather large one and I enjoyed doing some of the mowing, weed-whacking, trimming and even pulling up weeds. I liked to try new plants here and there, plant flowers in spots and carefully tend my potted plants.
I had a fondness for tacky yard art and have always hidden that tendency in the back where only invited guests can see it (and hopefully get a laugh). So we had big metal birds here and there and a concrete pelican and some big metal flowers and lots and lots of wind chimes.
I really like wind chimes.
There were big healthy-looking potted plants here and there, probably too many of them since most were on our porch and really took up too much room.
I have a fondness for benches and had a few scattered up on the porch and down in the yard (our backyard slopes away from the house so down in the yard is a correct way of saying that).
Then Ike headed our way.
A few days before landfall I started picking things up and putting them in the garage, just in case.
At first it was just things that blew easily (and thus were easy to pick up and move) like chair cushions and pool floats. As Ike got closer, I moved heavier and bigger things - potted plants that could easily be torn and tattered by a strong wind, for example.
As Ike showed no inclination to pass us by unscathed, I worked harder to put away the things that a hurricane-force wind could pick up and use to smash our windows or our heads. I had help by then and so we moved the outdoor furniture, the big potted plants, the things hanging on the deck posts (like thermometers and silly signs) and just about anything that could be moved or damaged by a big storm.
We’ve done all of this before, of course. We did it before Katrina and again before Rita. Everything that we moved into the garage we turned around and moved back out again pretty quickly.
Not this time.
With Ike, we had to wait a couple days for the water to recede, then wait until we had gotten all the debris out of the yard.
We worried more about getting the power back on and functioning while it was off than about making things look pretty again. Cutting up the downed trees (we lost 20 or so) took precedence over weeding the flower beds and decorating. Stuff in our flowerbeds died from being underwater, then buried in nasty rotting reeds and other materials that came out of the bayou behind our house and then ignored.
Somewhere along the way I lost the urge completely. The potted plants that survived did go back outside but I tended to forget about watering them so many died. The rest of the stuff is still piled up in the garage. Some of the landscaping is doing great - it’s hard to kill a hibiscus - but a lot of it is just dead or gone.
I haven’t really cared. I guess I just thought that another storm would come along and do it again so why bother. I’m trying to get over that.
We got our pool going again just recently and I am finally going to try to get the yard into better shape, try to do more than mow and whack the weeds. But I don’t think I will ever have so much decorative junk in my backyard as I did before Ike.
At least I hope not.
Jane Howard Lee is a reporter for The Baytown Sun.