by Cyndi Frost

Created on: July 02, 2008   Last Updated: August 13, 2009

Her yard has always been a source of pride for her and my grandfather. My grandfather passed away 6 years ago next month. He was always working in the yard, but I think that a lot of that was for my grandmothers benefit as well as his own enjoyment. I have seen them both planting and pulling weeds from the many flower beds and vegetable beds that they always had growing around the yard. The grass was always neat and trimmed, the flowers never seemed to have dead heads, the hedges never looked untrimmed.

My grandmother owns most of her neighborhood and it has also been kept up over the years by them. Since my pawpaws death the family has tried to keep things looking as they always did and up until about 2 years ago my mamaw could still do a little bit in her flowers. Now she can't even bend over to pick them.

This week while I was home from Florida to visit, I watched her as she sat on the porch, looking at the yard and listened as she made comments on things that were different now. I decided to do some of the things that she, not so much needed done as much as what she wished she herself could do but felt selfish for asking.

I trimmed her trees, pulled grass from the flowers and cut the hedges high off of the ground at the bottoms the way she likes them, so that they look like lollipops. These were little things, she of course told me the entire time I was doing them, that I needed to stop and not get to hot, while at the same time pointing at the next thing she wanted done. Then in the next breath she would "say I use to try to keep all of that done, but I just can't anymore", so I didn't mind doing it for her and I enjoy yard work too, except for one thing which is my nemesis as well as hers. The never ending kudzu that grows here in Alabama.

If you don't know what kudzu is, let me tell you it is Satan's curse on the south, using vegetation. It is a vine that grows a foot or more a day and has the strength to pull down not only a fence, but if left untended, a house can be covered and pulled to the ground in as little as two summers. I decided getting it under control would be my next project before I left to go back to Florida.

Fighting it takes all your strength and many curse words and the ability to continue an not give up and let it win or it will wait until you have your back turned, before it tries to grab you and pull you into its mass mountains of giant green leaves and vines. Well not really, but its all true except it trying to

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