When Barbara and I bought our house last year, there were plenty of things we wanted to do with it right away. We repainted the front rooms, had the floors done and had a few other minor things repaired. Recently, we put in central AC (pretty damned important before summer arrives in the New South) and in the next month the outside of the house will be painted.

There are those who think that a strapping young lad such as myself could do some of those jobs rather than paying a professional to do them. My answer is to point at the paint job in the front rooms (which is somewhat less than perfect), eliciting a unanimous response of "hire the painter." So we have.

The one project that I have taken full control of is the yard. Or, more correctly, the "outside space." Our front yard is more ivy than grass (hurrah!) and the back yard has plenty of places where plants might be planted and gardening might be attempted.

The problem with the outside space is that when we bought the house, all that space was covered with about four feet of growth. Some grass, some weeds, some stuff we couldn't identify. A lot of stuff we couldn't identify, really.

So after I whacked the green stuff down to a manageable level (with the exception of the garden spaces, which I just left for fall and winter to claim), I merely mowed the vaguely grassy parts and waited. Around the turn of the year, I whacked down all of the dead plants in the gardening spaces.

Over the winter, we decided what plants we wanted in a garden. The usual suspects: carrots, onions, corn, spinach, cucumbers, peas, beans and peppers. No tomatoes (Barbara doesn't allow them in the house), but otherwise a normal set of crops. In addition, I wanted to plant blueberries and raspberries.

Those of you who have only had storebought berries do not know what you're missing. Oh, sure, the ones off the shelf are fine (certainly better than frozen and infinitely better than canned pie filling), but there's nothing like stumbling onto a berry bush in the middle of a hot day and sucking down a handful or few of the succulent drupes. During my hikes and bikes, I've come across fresh raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and mulberries. In every single instance, the discovery has always made my day. Often, it made my week. In the case of a few stands of raspberry bushes along a bike trail in not-quite Amish country, those berries made my summer.

So after a week of chock full of rain, we ventured out in search of berry bushes. The only blueberries we saw were in sad shape. Many of the plants were dead already, and the rest were barely hanging on. We did find one raspberry bush, which looked a bit weak, but since raspberries are propagated by cuttings, I didn't worry. The stalk had a good root structure. It'll take hold.

But I passed on the blueberries, reasoning that by next weekend there would be hardier-looking bushes for my perusal. We got home and proceeded to plant some of our haul (herbs and peppers, along with the raspberry stalk). We've only got one digger, and Barbara wanted to plant the peppers herself. So I did a little weeding.

The previous owner of the house planted a number of great plants. We saw a few azaleas when we moved in. About three weeks ago, those became AZALEAS! There's really no other way to properly communicate the wild bursts of color that plant can create. There were some smaller ones toward the back of our lot that were being drowned out by some grass, so I went there first. Barbara came back after I was done and commented on how nice the AZALEAS looked now. Then she turned and pointed at four plants along our side fence.

"Those are pretty," she said.

"Yeah," I said, walking over to them. "You know, I almost tore them out when we moved in, but I wanted to figure out what they were. I don't know what they are, but they are pretty."

Then I took a closer look. Some of the small flowers were falling off, leaving little bud-shaped structures behind. More flowers to come. I wondered how long the plants would keep blooming. Then I stepped back and it hit me.

"We've got blueberries!" I yelled. "Lots and lots of blueberries!"

I'd like to say I did the blueberry dance of joy, but I torqued my knee a couple weeks ago and the doctor said I shouldn't get too exuberant for another four to six weeks. So I just stood there and shouted. "Blueberries! I can't believe I almost mowed them down last year."

The bushes are almost four feet tall now, and they should get up to eight feet in a couple years. Four (well, maybe three; one of the bushes isn't doing so well) eight-foot blueberry bushes would just about make life perfect. At least during the month or so of blueberry season. And for a couple months after that. Then, of course, there's always the anticipation of the next blueberry season.

Sure, sure, there's plenty more to do outside and inside the house. But as long as I have blueberries, all the other concerns kinda melt away.

Jon Worley's affection for various foods does not extend to steak. There's nothing worse than a rash of steaks in the back yard. Steak are pernicious: They have to be torn out by the roots before they reproduce.