Sunday, August 12, 2012

we'll be out here as long as it takes

growing up, family yard projects were a pretty big deal in the beck household. whilst the neighbor kids were having fun, all 5 beck kids were being tortured in the yard with weeding, tree removal, shrubbery trimming and one very special summer, sprinkler system installation. because thomas and i were both so blessed, thomas and i wanted to continue the tradition with our lucky, lucky children. we kicked the summer off with a special "weed's day" (reagan's term) on memorial day and we've been able to re-celebrate weed's day on multiple saturdays since. 

the tradition continues:
i actually feel a little bad for the kids. mostly because i agree with them; it isn't fun, it was hot and there were bugs aplenty(to scarlett's delight). but kids who don't know how to work are rather annoying and i don't want to contribute to that epidemic(how old am i?). the worst part though is when all the neighbors loaded up their kids and all their pool toys and headed up to the pool, while we were sweating it out in the yard. that's a hard one to explain. at least the kid's penchant for wearing their grubbiest clothes finally paid off. 


as i was coercing the kids to more fully participate in the yard work process, i had several flashbacks of some doug beckisms i experienced in the yard. i was repeating almost verbatim some choice phrases.

doug beck- "if we all pitch in, this will only take about 30 minutes." i think i heard my dad say that more than any other phrase in my entire life. 

kids-"i don't want to do this!"
doug beck- "surprise! i don't either!" 

kids- "how much longer?"
doug beck- "as long as it takes!"

kids- "none of the neighbor kids have to do this!"
doug beck- "none of the other kid's parent's love them as much as i love you!"

kids- "what if it starts to rain?"
doug beck- "then we have to finish in the rain."
(which is one of my favorite memories from growing up. all 7 becks in the yard during a thunderstorm pulling weeds. everything we were wearing was ruined, we were up to our knees in mud and the neighbors thought we were nuts.)

before:

after:

if doug beck taught me anything, he taught me how to remove a shrubbery without the aid of power tools. perhaps to know a bit what life was like for my pioneer ancestors?

i broke off most of the branches by hand, used a hack saw to sever all the roots and pulled the base out with my own two hands. all while engaging my core for a more dynamic workout. 
this removed shrub is for you dad!

7 comments:

HJolley said...

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

And of course, the same fight that took place every year, when everyone would turn against the kid who asked to go the bathroom and didn't return for 45 minutes.

Lindsey said...

This is awesome. Pure awesome.

Julianne said...

I love it I love it. Mostly because I'm guessing that every Saturday you guys were out in your yard, the Clay kids were out in in ours. My favorite: when there was a microburst that took down part of our big tree. It took us all morning to get it cut up and put through the chipper my dad rented. Then he sent us around the neighborhood to ask if anyone else wanted us to cut THEIR trees, too. Plenty of people were happy to send their dead tree limbs back with us poor kids. Took us all day and we were very grumpy about it.

Rachel said...

I remember your Saturday yard fun, and hearing about it then. My favorite ism is "surprise I don't Either" I feel like now I can say that out loud to my kids if Bishop Beck said it to his.

Ashley said...

Love this! The only memories I have of yard work is of raking leaves and today, our yard is ridiculous and we have no idea where to start correcting it. I think it's wonderful what you're doing for those kids!

The Stimpson Family said...

LOVE this post!!! Loved reading your dad's sayings! So fun and reminds me a lot of MY dad's sayings!...Funny I am using a lot of those on my kids this weekend as we are doing LOTS of yardwork!! (cue evil laugh!!)

Michelle said...

so funny! We provided hours of disgruntled garden labor summer after summer. At one point, my sister and I staged a kidnapping in the middle of a marathon green bean snapping session.