Following several strong storms this summer, I have often seen an elder person using a grabber/reacher to pick up myriad branches and twigs dumped onto the sizable lawn.
This day, since the person was very near the road, as I rode by on my bike I spoke, “It is a beautiful morning.”
Shocked to hear a female voice reply, I circled my bike back around. “You are a woman,” I blurted out! I had only seen this person dressed in worker attire, wearing a baseball cap and a mask, and I had assumed it was a man.
She told me she has a lot of allergies so she wears a mask everywhere she goes and always has it on when she is working out in the yard.
Fifty-two years ago they bought this house. Her husband, Martin, passed in 2015. Her name is Gloria.
“He is still taking care of me,” she says as she uses her grabber-reacher tool to pick up another twig before going on to explain,”had I gone to get the roll-out trash bins, I could have been right there when that big limb came crashing down.”
The vulnerable trees in their back yard are scheduled to be removed soon….