Coming at you with week 8 and final week of Landscape Coach Tips. These are the last 5 tips in our Landscape Coach Covid series. This series was started as a way to give you things you can do in your yard with the items you have at home while at home. I hope you have enjoyed them as much as I have creating them for you. This last week of our Landscape Coach Tips I’ll be sharing ideas for Building Community this Summer at home.
LANDSCAPE COACH TIP 36:
Where are you having lunch today……at your house of course! My boys and I are enjoying eating lunch outdoors daily. We’ve found 7 places in our yard for lunch. I challenge you to do the same. Lunching in your yard changes the days up and gives you a different view of your yard. It also helps you unearth your yard’s potential.
LANDSCAPE COACH TIP 37:
Working from home with your kids this summer? Ditto. I’ve worked from home for 8 years but never with all these colleagues under 12. And my boys have A LOT OF ENERGY so I try to come up with new ideas to entertain them daily. One of their favorites is the ‘Neighborhood Scavenger Hunt’. .I drag them to the park with a pre-made list that gets handed out after we arrive at the park. Then the boys are off to the races trying to find all the items and of course it’s always a competition with brothers. Some ideas are: find a plant that climbs, find something that’s red, find a tall tree.
LANDSCAPE COACH TIP 38:
Make use of your frontyard. Our frontyard gets a ton of use, for years we’ve had a sandbox, slide, swing, plus an edible garden. This year I had always planned to replace the sandbox with a flagstone patio. Who knew it’d be the perfect year to transform this space. We’ve been using it daily due to the pandemic keeping us at home 24/7. How can you rethink your frontyard to bring some life into it?
LANDSCAPE COACH TIP 39:
Turn your backyard into a campsite. Pop up a tent and fire up your firepit. Backyard camping nights are some of the fondest memories I have of growing up.
Create some COVID memories for your kiddos by keeping the camping simple by just heading out back. This is a good time to teach your kids how to set up a tent. Let them create their own spaces inside to make it their own. End the evening with yummy s’mores for summertime fun at home.
LANDSCAPE COACH TIP 40:
Building Community in your outdoor spaces is todays tip. We didn’t know when we moved into this block over 17 years ago that these welcoming neighbors would become our extended family. We’ve celebrated significant milestones together and we’ve suffered great loss but the community has remained tight. It’s ever more present now during Covid times. While we can’t actually go into each other’s houses or have outdoor block parties we’ve established new routines and ways to safely ‘gather’ together.
At least once a week we have a block activity. (utilizing social distancing and masks, of course). It may be as simple as standing on our respective sidewalks and raising a glass for a birthday or getting all dressed up for a formal family curbside dinner while our local pianist performs. Other activities include a pet parade, family game time (scattegories, battleship and bingo), water fun day where each yard provided one activity, scavenger hunt in your own home, and many more. These ‘gatherings’ give us something to look forward to, a chance to check in to make sure everyone is ok, and some hope that during difficult times we’ll come together even if in a new way.
Now more than ever, as we settle into this new normal, it is time to build community. Go out and meet your neighbors, check on those who are vulnerable, text those who are alone and distract those who are stuck at home with their 3 children. The time for change is now, the time for community is now, the time for peace is now, the time to take action is now. We’ve got this America+New Mexico+Albuquerque. The time is now.
As always, you can find me daily over on instagram / facebook and weekly here.
