Balls

I am taking a wee time-out from online Scrabble. Not to finish my paper or register Pittsburgh Rugby for dodgeball this winter. No, this break is to write about lawn balls.

We got one as a wedding gift. Here is us enjoying the lawn ball:

Corey's former roommate/current business partner and his lady-friend bought it for us. We are now white trash. In Lebanon, PA, where I grew up, people hoard lawn balls the way some women hoard cats.

Usually, the lawn balls show up next to lawn butts, or those black wooden cowboys leaning against light posts. Even next to plastic forest creatures or Virgin Mary icons. When I was little, I thought they were crystal balls that would tell the future. Now I know they are just strange.

We kept our lawn ball (or gazing ball) indoors for a long time while I sought the "perfect spot" for it outside. Corey began decorating it for holidays:


And he moved to to the front porch, where the mail carrier, Peggy, gets to look at it every afternoon.

In the spring time, I'm going to move it to the garden in the back yard and hope that it will keep deer and rabbits and turkeys from eating my pepper plants. For now, though, it will sit on the porch wearing a new hat for every Hallmark holiday.