With all the things that go on in the world, I seem to be egregiously heartbroken at what happens in my yard. It is not even my yard, you understand.  It is the yard where I am living. My daughter owns the house that sits on an acre and a half.  In my mind the front is mine, and the back is hers.

When something untoward happens in the garden, I am distraught, and I can’t get it out of my mind. I can’t seem to get over it. I really can’t bear it.

First there was the painter last fall who destroyed the two butterfly bushes out front.

It may have been the same painter who destroyed a whole bunch of white shastas. They were shastas or lilies.  But they are gone. They had been here forever, a whole little field of them.  By some ruthless act, they are gone.

I wrote previously about the berry bushes that got pulled up. The fact that there are many more berry bushes didn’t ease the pain.

Recently my daughter had someone helping in the yard. From my office window, I could see that the man was pulling weeds from a lovely spread of vinca ground cover. Vinca has lovely little white flowers in the spring.  The person was weeding poison ivy. Pulling poison ivy is all right with me!

In that same vinca patch are three quite large bleeding hearts, also called fuschias.  I see them right from my office window.

As the person was weeding, I thought to go out to make sure that he didn’t pull the bleeding hearts. I saw how he was carefully going around them, so I didn’t go out. Well, later, when I went outside, the bleeding hearts were gone. I relive the moment over and over again when I thought to go out and didn’t, and only if I had.

I spoke to the man about it the next time I saw him, but he wasn’t fazed. It was no crime to him, more like a casualty of war to be accepted.

Now there is a section on the side that I have kept wild as a sanctuary for birds and bees and whatever else. It is filled with plants native to Iowa and also many weeds. It is also filled with berries, and everything is so thick there you almost can’t find a way to get through.

It does my heart so much good to think that there is this wild place.  It doesn’t hurt anyone. It isn’t seen from the street etc.

I said to my daughter, “Please make sure that the guy doesn’t take that wild place apart.”

She said, as nicely as she could: “You’ve got to stay out of it. I’m getting the house ready to sell. I’ve got to make it look good to a buyer.”

I said, “But wouldn’t the kind of person who wants to buy this place appreciate a little wild  sanctuary?”

According to my daughter’s arch expression, apparently not.

Already I am heart-broken. Where are the bees and bugs and butterflies going to go?

If I were already living in Capilla Del Monte, I still would be heartbroken.

Yes, I’ve definitely got to learn to let go of control, but I’m not doing too well with that.

Apparently, it’s the wanton loss that is too much for me to bear. I am not so upset about the crabapple tree that cracked in half during a recent storm. I am sorry, but I don’t bemoan its loss.

I think it is better if I stay in and don’t go outside to look at the yard anymore.