For years a big metal sunflower, a gift from my wife’s Ya-Ya’s, has stood hidden behind the big rose bush at the east end of the house. When it was first placed there, the rose was small, the burr oak a young tree, the yaupon holly a child, and the Orchid tree equally small. Over the years they all grew, filled in and created a mini woodland, which is what you want with plants, but it hid the sunflower. I have no doubt, if my wife had been of sound mind in recent years, she would have insisted it be moved, or she would have moved it herself.

Yesterday, in the first blush of winter with the burr oak bare of leaves and the rose nearly equally so, I went in to take it down. The first thing I noticed was the motley assortment of screws I used with the small pipe clamps to hold it in place. One of them required a flathead screwdriver, what was I thinking? The other was a big phillips. Wow, bad planning. Anyway, I bent and pushed and pulled, and got everything loose with only a few minor pricks from the rose, who had no idea why I was back there. No knuckles were busted.

The new home for the rusty old sunflower is at the end of the drive on the back fence behind the Eve’s Necklace. It looks nice and is easily seen but is still subtle, which is how we always liked our garden ornaments. Plants first, ornaments second. Getting it moved made the day feel productive, but relatively speaking it was a peanuts worth of work. But that’s okay. It was another little job on the road to recovery, and it kept me moving forward.