Driveway, good and bad

I have always had a problematic driveway.  The house is on a hill.  When I moved here with my second husband, he only wanted a driveway that came halfway up the hill because he was afraid a driveway to the house would look “suburban.”Ira and I have lived here together now for thirty-one years and the driveway as we get older has become more of a nuisance.  We brought it up as far as we could, but it was narrow and hard to back down or back up.  Guests tended to drive into the beds on either side, smashed the wooden edges and destroying bushes.  Ira himself ended up with the car in the lower vegetable garden one icy day two years ago, and had to be towed out.So we decided to finally do something about it. We hired Froggie Frasier to redo it completely, widening the driveway, putting new ties on either side to replace those long ago demolished by people driving over them.  Most important of all, we wanted a turnaround at the top around the sugar maple.As much as I wanted these improvements, and I wanted them a lot, the outside work almost drove me mad, the beep beep beep beep beep beep beep of the machinery backed up most of all.  I couldn’t work.  I get very irritable when I can’t write.  I took out seasonal clothes and finally packed away summer sundresses, shorts, tees, sandals.  I put some files in order.  I even sewed on some buttons. I sew about as well as my cats do.Finally last Friday the work was completed and Froggie left with all the machinery and trucks.  It’s great.  But best of all, I sat down and the floodgates broke.  Between Friday afternoon when they left and Sunday night, I wrote three poems and a new short story.  My mood has vastly improved.In order to make space for the turnaround, we had to move and replant several hostas and goatsbeards and replant 175 bulbs.  Ira planted four trees to provide screening that was lost.  But we are happy with the results.The trees are turning now.  We’re about the last place in New England to get peak fall color. The weeping beech hasn’t even begun to turn, but the maples are at least 50% gold and orange. the burning bush is scarlet, the Virginia creeper is crimson.  The birds are busy at the feeders, stimulating the cats. The wild turkeys come frequently, still in the hen and poults groupings, not yet with a gobbler.  The tomatoes are finally done, although the brave peppers are still producing. We have not yet had a frost, but it’s time for the fall produce: kale, brussel sprouts, radishes, radicchio, arugula, lettuce, endive, escarole – but the deer just ate all the Swiss chard.