I Hate To Rake

Today was one of the first days we have had sunshine and a temperature above 50 degrees since, well – probably since last October. I grabbed my winter jacket before heading out the office door for the short drive home. No need to actually put the jacket on today. A few tenths of a mile out of town I noticed my neighbor raking the lawn. Oh no. The “r” word. Everyone is doing it. Everyone is talking about doing it.

But I hate to rake.

Thankfully, when I get home, Chrissy, my 5-year old granddaughter, is there to meet me at the door. Her dad comes in the house to grab a snack too. After some small talk, Chrissy declares to her dad that she is ready to go home. Unfortunately, he is not done working so he tells her that they cannot go just yet. So as to avoid a scene with my darling granddaughter, I nonchalantly say, “Good, then we can go outside and rake a little.”

Did I mention that I hate to rake? Here is where a grandmother’s love surpasses all understanding. Here is where I dig out the big person garden gloves, and also the little person garden gloves. We don our jackets to protect us from the wind and go outside to get the rakes. I take the big one and she takes the little one.

We journey over to the flower bed behind the house. I roll the dead Christmas tree off the tulips and iris that are popping up out of the ground.

“Chrissy, look – there are tulips coming up! Oh, don’t step on them.”

“I won’t, Grandma. But I can’t get this rake to work right.”

“Let me show you how. Oh, but you’re standing on the tulips. You’ve got to move your foot just a little.”

“Grandma, how about if I just look for the painted rocks and you rake the leaves out of the flowers?”

“Okay, Chrissy, that’s fine.” She quickly finds four of them and places them in protective custody on the sidewalk.

“Hey, Grandma - (she points to the rain gauge she sees in the garden) this is almost empty. Do you know that it used to be full?”

“Really. No, I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, it elaporated. And then after that happened it went up to the sky to a cloud and it turned into gas.”

“Wow, you must have learned that in Science class!”

“How did you know that, Grandma?”

“Because I know that evaporation is something kids learn about in Science.”

“Grandma, do you think we can put our rakes away now and go look at the trees?”

“I think that would be a great idea. Let’s put our rakes in the shed.”

We quickly walked to the garden shed, put our rakes away and headed over to check out the little red maple tree in the yard. I pointed out the buds on the tree and we also saw some sap running down the trunk. Next we walked to the big pine trees bordering the edge of the lawn. I told Chrissy that these trees were about this tall (using my hands to designate about 12”) when Mickey was born – which was thirteen years ago. I looked up towards the sky and marveled myself at how tall these trees were – thinking how fast time had gone in those last thirteen years, and how I had lost track of just how tall they were. How can time go so fast?

Our last stop was to find some pine cones. Chrissy and I walked to the little Norway Spruce tree in the front yard and found a bunch of “baby” pine cones, then also picked up a couple bigger ones and took them into the house. She remembered right away that I have a basket on top of the cabinet by the coat rack filled with pine cones. She added the cones to the basket. Aside from the ones she added, all the rest of the cones are from the decorator’s aisle at Wal Mart.

Chrissy doesn’t need to know that. And she doesn’t need to know that I hate to rake. She just knows that her grandmother loves to spend time with her. And look for painted rocks. And talk about Science.