The roto-tiller that my dad used to till the garden from my childhood was gifted to my sister in 2020 when the world held its collective breath over COVID and she decided to become a half-way homesteader.

I say halfway, because she still kind of lived in the city. The houses were a little further apart than our childhood suburban neighborhood, her street came to a dead end at a corn field, she kept chickens, and there was a small private airfield close enough that you could hear the parachutes of the skydivers open from her backyard. But it was still suburban enough that the school, park, liquor store, post office and a couple of eateries were within walking distance.

4 years, a child, a wishy-washy man-child of a baby daddy, the loss of our father, and 2 good jobs later; Her house was in shambles and she was emptying it for the purpose of selling it while also looking for a place to buy. There wasn’t time for forethought, we had a week… 2 weekends, to empty the house and yard.

The catch, it was the coldest week of the winter, and EVERYTHING in her yard was frozen to the ground.

The demolition crew of friends we cobbled together flattened a larger and sturdy chicken coop, and some things were salvaged before the sale was final. But the tiller that had been gifted to her in 2020 had become so tangled with the Creeping Charlie that claimed her yard, that it had to be left behind.

I took one last look at it the day she handed the keys over to the buyer. It stood like a lonesome relic, a testament to all of the things that happened in that yard. I imagine its been relegated to a junkyard somewhere. And just like that the world moves on.