Give Me a Rake and I’ll Change the World

I raked a lot last month: vines, leaves, sticks, stones, trash, dirt. I didn’t change the world, but I certainly improved the looks of my father’s property.

“Getting down to earth” was a great tonic for my grief. Birds chattered and sang in the trees and bushes as I raked (no need for an iPod in the garden), and the sky often diverted my focus with shape-shifting clouds and colors. I watched various hues of green emerge on once-dormant trees.

Breaking down sticks and branches to fit in the designated yard bags took nearly as much of my time as raking. This task brought to mind my beloved pooch, who would have made a terrific assistant in the garden.

My one-in-a-million canine liked having work to do, and she loved sticks. But she didn’t chew on them the way other dogs do, nor did she retrieve them or prance around with them in her mouth. She “detwigged” them—pulled all the little offshoots off with her paws or her teeth until the stick was free of all excess. And once she broke it down to a straight stick, she abandoned it; mission accomplished. Had she been helping me last month, I could have finished twice as fast.

Instead, I had only the neighbors’ hound (pictured) to keep me company. He was on the other side of the fence, though, tethered in a parking area. When I asked him one day if he liked sticks, he disappeared from view for a moment, then popped up with a stick in his mouth! I took that as a Yes and started a stash of sticks for him. Every day, I’d meet him at the low end of the fence and hand over a new stick. Unlike my pooch, he was the kind of dog who preferred to find himself a sunlit spot to lie down on and slowly chew the wood. This activity prevented the boredom that so often overwhelmed him as a lonely yard dog.

As soon as he heard me in the yard, he stood near the stick stash I’d made (he couldn’t see the sticks—he just remembered me bending down in that area of the yard before giving him a new stick) and emit a single, loud bark. It wasn’t a pushy bark, either. It was more of a “Hey! Here I am! It’s me!” Who wouldn’t want to reward such sweetness—and smartness?

So I got my dog fix, my bird fix, and my gardening fix all in one task on the aptly named Woodland Avenue. Who knew that a simple rake could be the path to happiness?