Just want to tell you about my backyard. What a mess. My farm is worse than Green Acres. I have more than enough to tend here.

A couple weeks ago, before I turned into a witch, I stacked a lot of wood. Wood stacking is a regular pastime in Maine. People here worship wood and make all kinds of wood stacking shrines that are ceremoniously dismantled and ritualistically burned throughout the winter.

Stacking wood is a spiritual endeavor that makes me happy. I have stacked wood in the barn, el, breezeway and outside. I reach a higher consciousness stacking wood and the activity is stress relieving.

Maybe I'm stressed because my fences need mending. If I don't mend my fences soon, they will totally collapse. I have waited too long and have little time left before the snow and ice make the job impossible until next spring's warmth.

I have so much to tend to and mind in my own backyard. I barely know what my neighbors are doing in their yards. Recently, I did noticed that  the neighbor way down yonder is building a whole new structure in his backyard.

Last summer, I noticed that another neighbor up the street has a chicken coop in her front yard. I thought that the coop and chicken wire right in the front yard by the road was an interesting choice. I would not choose to put a chicken coop in my yard, right in front of my house but this configuration was still intriguing to me. 

During the summer months, I walked by that coop many times on my way to my favorite swimming hole. I enjoyed hearing the clucking chickens and thinking about fresh eggs. I thought about eggs until I walked past the graveyard.

I love the graveyard near the hill overlooking the lake where I swim. I like reading the old grave stones that mark the generations of passing life in my neighborhood. These are the neighbors that lived in my village from yesterday to over 150 years ago.

I wonder if these neighbors were good to each other and as peaceful  toward each other as they are now laid in their rows under the trees. Does what they did in their lives matter? Did they tend to their own backyards and mend fences with a zeal that I would be best to emulate?