Demolishing the Yew Alley

 It's not often that one does Sherlockian yardwork.

But today, after mowing the lawn I decided that a certain corner of the lawn, which had been host to some weeds, needed to be more mower friendly, and generally cleaned up for the next owners to come a few years down the road. Paving stones, border bricks, a pedestal with a sundial, all butting up to a corner of an eight foot wooden fence.

That wooden fence wasn't always there. When we moved into our home, nearly three decades ago, our entire backyard was bordered by a picket fence, meant for keeping little kids and small dogs from running off. It was old and a bit rickety, and when a new neighbor to the north moved in and wanted a more secure metal fence for their dog, we said "Sure, you can replace the fence on your side!" Eventually the same question came from our backyard neighbor for their larger dogs, and a larger fence went in. And finally, the same for our neighbor to the south. "Good fences make good neighbors," as the saying goes.

Yet before all that took place, when we first moved in, a path had been build between our backyard and the house diagonally across from the southwest corner said yard. And that house was owned by my old Sherlockian friend, Bob Burr, who had spent the previous six months of his retired life seeing houses for sale on his morning walks and suggesting we move into his neighborhood. And after several rounds of "No, we want a TWO car garage!" and the like, he did find us one that met all our requirements, catty-cornered to his own property.

I'm not sure who decided their house was Baskerville Hall in the ensuing months, but we got permission from the other neighbors to make a little walk between our yards which we called "the Yew Alley" after the site in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Newsletter columns, proofs of journals, new books picked up for my friend -- all those things and more started using that route for delivery. And since I could look down from an upstairs window to see when Bob was out on his back patio for his evening cocktail, just delivering any news or gossip in person became an easy thing as well via the Yew Alley.

When Bob passed away in 2013, the passage was closed off, yet the landscaping I'd put in that corner remained. The sundial he had so carefully calibrated when I went to put it in. The short path of stones that now went nowhere. And after thirteen years of upkeep worthy of a drunken Hudson of a gardener, the corner slowly became a shadow of its former self, and the time for clean-up had come.

So, raising a glass to the morning's efforts, and that happy past this chore came from, I'm bidding adieu to the last of the Yew Alley today. Glad to have had it while we did.