The Backyard

The Apricot Tree

Corey and Curtis

Corey

 Corey and Curtis

 

Corey

Curtis

Mom:
The backyard was a blank slate.  We had a patio and patio cover put in soon after moving into the house.  There was also a small patio outside the sliding door from the living room and a path at the side of the house where we stored the trash cans (The small patio would later be removed when the sewing room was added in 1978). Dad put in the sprinklers in the backyard and then he and Vic Staley rolled sod out.  Grandpa and Grandma Judd came to visit one Fall and Grandpa built the brick wall and bought fill dirt for the vegetable garden area, put in a water spicket, compost and planted a winter vegetable garden.  They also planted the roses and  the olive tree in the front yard.

The people behind us decided to build a pool and insisted on raise the height of the back fence to 6 feet. Well, it was 7 feet so Dad and Grandpa measured the fence and cut off 12 inches so it would be 6 feet.  We lost our "view", we had also painted the lower fence and Dad insisted that the new fence should also be painted.  The neighbor was not very nice and came one afternoon with two gallons of paint and dropped them at our front door.  He also didn't build the new fence properly so the "crossbar" was too low.  This is why Oscar was always able to climb over the fence into their yard and escape for a walk around the neighborhood.  

 

Dad also planted one cherry tree that never had one piece of fruit on it and very few leaves.  Finally it was simply a stick and after much prodding he finally removed it.  We also tried to grow a lemon tree, but it also died.  Our greatest success was the apricot tree by the sewing room window.  We had lots of fresh apricots and frozen apricot jam over the years.  In fact when we sold the house in June, Dad wanted to have frozen apricot jam to take to the new house.  Since I was busy working and packing up the house to move I taught him how to make the jam so I could continue packing and working.

 

The houses in the neighborhood were so close together that you could hear everything in your neighbors yard.  One of the most annoying things was hearing the Johnsons' older dog bark every time I was in the kitchen.  One day I read that you could train a dog not to bark by spraying him with water, so I went onto the patio and with the hose reached over the fence and sprayed him with water.  He would shut up for a while, but still continued to bark until he died.

Maren:
The memories that I have of the backyard are from when it was already very mature.  It is shocking to see the photos of when the house was first bought and to see how tiny the apricot tree and the Ash tree near the Johnson’s backyard were in the beginning.

The patio was shady thanks to the slatted patio cover. I think at one time it got a new coat of paint by Corey or Curtis one summer, when it was starting to look a little trashy due to peeling paint and a broken slat or two.  The cats would often take refuge from us by climbing up there, or to simply sunbathe.  There was easy access to the top for them by way of the apricot tree or the fence on the opposite side.  There was a long skinny counter outside of the kitchen window where we would put the cats’ food dishes so Oscar wouldn’t eat their food.  This counter eventually got warped and ruined, as well.  I don’t remember if it was ever repaired or replaced before the move to Venus St.  When I was really young, there was a small plastic yellow play kitchen out there, too.  I’m wondering if it had originally been Marné’s because I only remember it being really old, dusty, and partially broken.  There were maybe a few plates and a piece or two of play food, so it wasn’t much fun to play with.  There was also a wooden picnic table and benches that may have bought near the time of first moving into the house, but my only memories are of a wobbly, rickety, sun bleached table that would give you splinters if you weren’t careful.  A large plant pot was out there, too.  I remember planting morning glories in there one year (possibly for Young Women Personal Progress.  You know, to understand that faith is like a seed…) and being pretty proud of my accomplishment in getting something to grow fairly well.

The sliding glass door from the kitchen out to the patio was often dirty with Oscar’s drool or nose marks, likely from when he would whine to come inside.  The screen door was pretty gnarled up and at one point had been “repaired” with a thicker metal gate attached to the bottom.  I’m pretty sure Oscar deformed even that.

Dad had one of those spherical black charcoal barbeques out there as well.  We’d barbeque on the 4^th of July (the one day of the year that we also bought soda – more specifically A&W Root Beer).

The back fence had 3 bushes lining it, as well as the stick that was supposedly a cherry tree. The fence wasn’t very high, so the cats would often scale that fence to go roam the neighborhood (Oscar made the leap over that fence a time or two, as well). Once one of the animals left a half dead mouse near the fence and I was pretty distraught about it.  Yuck.   In the back corner near the garden was the area designated for Oscar to use as a bathroom.  Picking up his dried poop was a never-ending chore.

The garden wall was made of tan bricks maybe 2 feet high, with a few little brick steps in one spot.  Tomatoes, green beans, and corn were the things I remember most growing in there.  I loved to pick the green beans, eating several here and there while picking.  In the garden area closer to the fence that led to the front yard, it was a little less kempt.  There was a Concord grape plant that did actually produce grapes, despite being sort of forgotten.  I don’t remember actually doing much with the grapes, though.  There were a couple more cypress trees as well as a little shed that was filled with who-knows-what. 

Along the side of the house near the chimney was a woodpile.  I don’t remember Dad or anyone else going to fetch and chop wood, and I only remember ever having a fire in the living room fireplace once or twice ever, so those wood scraps must have been very old and a great breeding spot for bugs of all sorts.  I’m sure someone told me that there were black widow spiders living in there, so I was always a little wary of walking around back near the woodpile.

The apricot tree bore lots of fruit in the summer, but we had to try and pick it before the birds started pecking out little bits in every piece of fruit. The cats probably helped to scare away the birds occasionally, which helped, but didn’t completely solve the problem.  Eating a warm, perfectly ripe apricot off of that tree is another sweet (no pun intended) memory.   We would just throw the stones from the fruit on the ground under the tree.  If we were lucky to pick a surplus of apricots, jam would be made. 

The grass was quite weedy.  Several times I attempted to keep those weeds at bay, but it was too overwhelming.  Perhaps it was after my morning glory success that I set to work to create a flowerbed along the fence right outside the back door.  In the picture of Friskie above that may have been the area right there behind that rock border.  However, I never finished that project.

At one time, I remember Cary, Matt Johnson, and some other friends creating some sort of club house in Matt’s yard right up next to our yard. 

Dad:

The back yard started out with nothing but the Ash tree in the southwest corner which was planted by the development company. I installed the sprinkler system myself after carefully planning it out so it provided full coverage. The reason for the photos of the work in progress, though, was to determine where all the underground pipes were in case they broke and needed to be repaired. I never had to worry about that because they always seemed to work OK. I also installed the sod, which looked good for the first 2 or 3 years. Then it seemed to go down hill and weeds kind of took over. I didn't take very good care of it in later years, except for watering and mowing it. In fact I dug up some the grass (the area directly back from the kitchen) and replanted it. It too, looked good for awhile until more weeds took over. 
 

Over the years the apricot and cherry trees were planted along with grape vines and other miscellaneous plants and shrubs. We always had a pretty good garden although weeds would threaten to take over and sometimes did. One year, I planted a "winter garden" that included broccoli, cabbages, and brussels sprouts, etc. They produced quite well, but were taken over and partly eaten by various kinds of bugs. We usually had good crops of beans, tomatoes, radishes, carrots, cucumbers and zucchini squash. The grapes never did very well probably because of a lack of water.

 

The patio cover was a  big improvement in regard to providing a nice shady area rather than the direct sun through the back windows and sliding door. Grandpa Judd built the back wall and brought in some good topsoil, which made a nice garden spot. The back yard didn't get the care and maintenance that it should have, or it would have looked better. About the only things that did real well was the apricot tree and the garden.   

 

Corey:

The most used part of the backyard was the patio outside the sliding glass door from the kitchen.  The “picnic table” was out there as long as I can remember. I don’t know where or when we got it, but over the years the stain chipped off and it got more and more rickety. There was also a shelf outside the kitchen window, opposite the kitchen sink.  It had several pots on it and wasn’t used for much else. Oscar’s food and water sat beneath it along with his dog carrier/dog house.  I made a macrame pot holder in 1st grade that hung near the shelf for several years. I can barely remember the patio before the patio cover was put in, mainly because there were plastic pots covering the metal brackets for the posts that stuck out of the concrete.  The patio cover provided nice shade. I remember Curtis and I, and later Cary, using the ladder to climb up on the patio cover. Someone put a piece of plywood over in the corner where we would climb on. It was tricky to get up there with the thin wood slats—you had to be careful to walk on the support beams and not on the wood slats alone as they could break. I think I had a telescope up there at one time, looking at the moon.

 

The backyard lawn was never very good. The tree in the corner of the yard grew quite large and by the time we moved, covered much of the lawn in shade.  Along the back fence there were some shrubs that we occasionally pruned, and the cherry tree, which was essentially a stick that had a few leaves but never produced a single cherry. At one time, Curtis and I built a clubhouse along the back fence, complete with a hinged door and two separate rooms. I remember trying to lift a piece of plywood into place for the roof. There was a nail sticking out of the plywood and when I shifted under the weight of the wood, the nail found my ear, puncturing the back of it.  It bled a bit but was surprisingly painless. I can also recall when we built the back fence, for some reason the Hurleys had a problem with it—I guess it was too tall. I remember them being back there cutting a good foot from the top of the fence.  And when we were building the club house, their one son heard the hammering and for some reason got a hammer and started banging on the other side of the fence.  

 

I also recall when Grandpa Judd came to visit and helped Dad build the block wall for the garden. The garden was great to have. It seems like Dad always had something planted and was always watering it with the hose.  I took tomatoes and carrots from time to time to snack on.  We discovered the grape vine later and ate quite a few grapes though they required a bit of work as they had seeds and tougher skin. I also remember that for a while there was an electric wire along the wall to protect the garden, I think from the cats but maybe from something else. After Cary grabbed it a few times I think Dad packed it in and figured it wasn’t worth it. I vaguely remember a joke about Cary having curly hair because he grabbed the wire and couldn’t let go.

 

At the end of the garden by the fence and gate to the front yard, there was a rickety wooden shed. I think there was fertilizer and a few other odds and ends in there. I remember climbing on top of it a few times, which was easy to do with the fence right there. There was also a wood pile along the wall outside the sewing room which was essentially scraps from the addition to the house and the patio cover. It never seemed to get smaller and was a good source for materials when we had different projects. There were a lot of spiders in there.

 

The apricot tree was one of the best things about the back yard. The blossoms were always pretty in the spring and we got a surprisingly large number of apricots every year. Apricot jam from the home grown apricots was one of my favorites.