Marie

We have lived in our house for just over 20 years now, and for all of this time Marie has been our neighbor. I’ve mentioned Marie a couple of times on my blog over the years because she never ceases to amaze me. Marie is 83 (I mistakenly aged her at 78 in a blog post a couple of years ago), and grew up on our street, in fact in our house. It was truly a farm house back when she was a child and she tells stories of walking the cows up the hill to their other pastures on a dirt road which is today paved with a double yellow line.

She moved, from what is now our house, when she and her new husband Charlie built a new house for themselves next door. She has lived there ever since. Charlie passed away several years ago, and she has managed on her own since. Marie has never learned to drive, so she walks down to the store when she needs to pick something up. She still cuts ½ of her 1 acre yard with a push mower… the kind that’s not self-propelled. And she shovels her driveway so early on a winter morning that I don’t even have a chance to offer to help out with my girnormous snowthrower.

What made me think of her today though is her flowers. Boy, does Marie love her flowers. She plants them ALL over her yard and waters them everyday. When you drive down our street you can’t help but marvel over her front yard every time.
Which I did just this afternoon. So I thought I would share.



I snapped this from inside our house ... you can see Marie out there probably snagging a stray weed or two.