After a couple decades (okay, almost three if you count college) of being too busy doing other things and livin' in condos and postage-stamp suburban fakers of real neighborhoods, we finally moved to a spot of land of our own. It's not big enough to shoot a gun, but it is big enough our son is too afraid to go all the way out to the back corner by himself.

I thought I was a hard worker, but this yard is teaching me things. About work. And about what "home" means.

Spent a long afternoon cleaning up stuff that had been frozen under snow since Thanksgiving, and that probably should have been cleaned up around Halloween. Yup, I'm a full three or four holidays behind, and it's not even Valentine's Day.

But today was different. It wasn't an afternoon -- half an afternoon, or even 90 minutes, more likely in the old days -- spent rush rush rushing to get something done so I could feel, well, like I'd got just enough done to say "I got something done." And go right to cocktail hour.

It was just an afternoon of work, because there's always more to be done, even in our relatively small (by cowboy standards) acre on the edge of town. A little raking, a little of this and a little of that. IMPORTANT ASIDE: Anyone got a good method for keeping the foxes away? I'll post on this elsewhere, but I've resolved to keep last year's "awwww, aren't they cute" duo from coming back this year to chew cause way more problems than the neighbors' pictures could ever be worth.

Here's the thing. Today, for the first time, the work was more like making coffee in the morning as the sun comes up than it was the annual (hah) cleaning of the garage or other "project." I felt rooted to our land in a way I hadn't before. And I realized it's more about the doing than it is the crowing.

Not new news to anyone who's ever worked a ranch or lived on a farm, I'm sure. But a good day for an aging college-boy just the same.

--JH