Garden 3: Family Portrait

Not about the garden, but it takes place there.

Lego homage to my son's favourite dubstep artist, Sonny John Moore, AKA Skrillex

The one thing I ever stole in my life (on purpose) was a 2X4 piece of yellow Lego. I took it from the house of a friend, hidden in my sock. It hurt my ankle a little, and rubbed my conscience a little more, but replacing it seemed impossibly risky. And then we moved.

It's love

There's not much you can do with one piece of Lego, regardless of the size or colour. My parents would surely have been more than happy to provide me with some, had they known, but I didn't ask, and they didn't guess. That lone block travelled with us from house to house and town to town to town to city, useless as only one piece of Lego can be. It ended up in a box of donations. I wish I had kept it just a few years longer; I would have given it to my son. Many of his sweetest gifts to me have been made of Lego.

Which brings me to vacuum cleaner bags. I admit it: I sift them when they're full. It's the Lego! I know it's in there, and I can't bear to throw it out! Classic Lego, or Lego Friends - all over the world, where there's a vacuum cleaner and imagination, there's Lego.

Can my house be that filthy?

It's not a job I look forward to - the puffed up, surprisingly weighty bag might sit on the back porch for months before I get to it - but nary a sift occurs that I'm not glad I did it. 

Three days ago, during a session of "To the End of the Yard and Back" (an after-dinner exercise in which my family and I attempt to get from the kitchen, to the alley and back to the house, while engaging in appropriate social interaction), I deftly orchestrated the first family sift. I have been steadily working to hand over to them the jobs my family is capable of doing for themselves. Rescuing aspirated Lego was next on the list. 

I expected mass disgust and outright refusal, but it went surprisingly well. Sitting in the grass, I showed them how to slash a big X in the bag with the kitchen scissors (NOT! my sewing shears!), revealing the contents: a detailed, if dirty, portrait of our family. 

Life is a vacuum bag of debris; you never know what you're gonna find

Aside from 7 pieces of assorted Lego (both kinds), we found: a Polly Pocket purse; a purple hair elastic - the good kind; a dime; three types of pins; a tiny screw lost while modifying a Nerf gun; a tube of whipped eggnog Lipsmacker (No! Wash it first!); broken glass; popcorn kernels; bread clips; unidentified, random plastic toy parts; several lavender syringe needle caps, alcohol swabs, and needle safety tabs; thread. Whoo! Bits of paper from my daughter practising how to hold a pair of scissors. Lots and lots of hair. (Trying not to breathe.) What is that...? The peeled-off backing from numerous stickers, a plastic sock staple, some tape, some Solvy scraps, cardboard bits, two Kleenexes, ew. Uh... more thread, more Solvy, more popcorn. And we've got pencil sharpenings, feathers from the duvet up in our bedroom (need to mend that)... There's a sequin, more Solvy, more feathers, another needle security tab. A Dubble Bubble wrapper - one of dozens brought home by my son from Cogmed. A pill bug carcass - my daughter likes bugs. Vector - we all like Vector. More needle tabby thingies, more bread clips. Oh: another nice hair elastic! A Q-Tip - gross. OK! Enough! Gross...

When it was finished, my son thanked me for the tutorial.

Garden 14:  Harvest
Garden 13: Abandoned Stuff, Things of Beauty
Garden 12: Death and Potential
Garden 11: Japanese Maple Tree and Sedum (?)
Garden 10: Foxglove and Weed Digger
Garden 9: Veggies and Sweet Pea 
Garden 8: Gnomes and Slugs
Garden 7: The Lady Next Door
Garden 6: Euphorbia and Rusted, Metal Things
Garden 5: Cement Bench and Wallflower
Garden 4: Maryjane
Garden 2: The Neighbours'
Garden 1: Lilac Bush and Abandoned Cans