the big project

This beguiling summer weather has lured me outside almost every day for a serious walk. I swing my arms, take deep, engaging breaths, and span my surroundings for anything alive. Yesterday, I stood roadside to watch a bluebird on a tree branch. I spotted a wild turkey skittering through the underbrush. I screamed for joy when a renegade puppy shot toward me faster than a speeding bullet to play with me. I announced to a red squirrel in my yard, "Daddy's gonna shoot you." It's what I say to all the squirrels, and it's not an empty threat. So, I'm not an across-the-board animal lover.
But I digress.
What I really want to expound upon is my trek to our new property. (Well, soon to be ours, as the closing is in less than two weeks.) As it is only a twenty minute stroll from our Friday School classes, I found myself drawn there between choir classes. I tramped down the hill toward the waterfront, sending alarmed frogs springing into the river with ridiculously frightened peeps. Oh, how I liked that waterfront view. Oh yes, yes, yesirree.
Then I cheerfully pirouetted on one sprightly toe in order to face the house and barn that we will call home, causing a paradigm shift abrupt enough to register on the Richter Scale. Looming over me, casting a sinister shadow, was a towering row of unkempt and teetering structures. A banner of clothes which hung on a droopy rope flapped in the breeze over an avalanche of garbage that spread downhill from broken slabs of cement. Slip-shod roofing and patched siding seemed to hold things together in the same way that duct tape could hold the Hoover Dam. The magnitude of this home-improvement project dizzied me and entirely knocked the wind from my sails --I really almost fell over backward. The ridiculously frightened peeps of those frogs didn't seem quite so far-fetched anymore, but perfectly appropriate, given the situation. I scrambled inwardly for a shred of hope.
The day before our upcoming closing happens to be a momentous one for this here family: Hubby's fiftieth birthday. I had politely inquired, "Are you sure you are up for this project? You know, being a member of the Half-Century Club and all?"
He never skipped a beat, but retorted, "Bring it on, Baby."
The remembrance of that statement allowed me to rally my strength and square back my shoulders. Bracing my feet in the spongy grass, I defiantly tilted my chin upwards and announced to that rickety slum:
"Daddy's gonna fix you!"