It’s a Sign: Harvesting My Front Yard

This month, I offer the latest installment in my occasional and unpredictable series entitled It’s a Sign.

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It’s harvest time in Northern California. Napa Valley wineries are busy picking grapes with high expectations for the next great cabernet or sauvignon blanc. Weekend festivals celebrate the latest crop of apples, strawberries, artichokes, and even garlic. (If you haven’t had garlic ice cream at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, you haven’t lived.) Half Moon Bay is dotted with fields of pumpkins growing ripe in anticipation of Halloween. The bounty surrounding me fills me with gratitude as the seasons glide from summer to fall. So, what have I harvested this summer?

Yard signs.

I tried for decades to have a lovely, well-manicured, flowering front yard, but the local deer had other ideas. I’ve battled the herds of sweet-looking Bambis while people stopped their cars to coo, “Aw, look how cute!”

My response was to curse, “Argh, they just ate a hundred dollars’ worth of plants!” I’ve learned that beyond asparagus ferns and salvia, there’s no amount of deer-resistant plants, garlic pouches, or sulfur-smelling spray to deter them from feasting on my plants.

By ceding my front yard to them, we’ve come to a peaceful coexistence as they nap in shady corners and clean up the crab apples from my neighbor’s overhanging tree. They even stop by at Christmas to admire my Christmas tree.

So, instead of flowers, I plant yard signs.

It began during COVID-19 as a way to connect with my neighbors when they cut through my driveway on their daily walks. The first one was in honor of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and like her legacy, it has lasted the longest, surviving wild winter storms strong enough to knock down ancient coast oaks all around me. While the weather has forced me to replace signs over the years, I’ve never had a sign just disappear until last month when my We Say Gay sign went missing. It may have been an act of political disagreement, but my ever-optimistic viewpoint prefers to think it was stolen on a late-night dare and is now adorning a young teenager’s bedroom. If so, they are more than welcome to it.

The next day, I purchased the same sign along with a Choose Democracy Over Dictatorship sign. And, of course, after J.D. Vance’s comment about cat ladies, I had to get another sign featuring cats of all colors and stripes supporting the Harris Walz ticket.

Yes, I’m officially that lady.

I’ve come to embrace that role as my neighbors stop by to discuss politics, express their thanks for reminding them of what they believe, or simply telling me that my yard makes them smile. Last week, a young woman stopped her car to gush, “I love your signs!” I went inside and bought a Women’s Rights are Human Rights sign in her honor.

It doesn’t take a lot of courage to plant signs like this when I live in the bluest part of northern California. But if one of my signs makes someone remember, for a brief moment, to honor their value of love, respect, fairness, or humor, I’ve done my job.

And I have the deer to thank for that. If I can’t have a bountiful yard full of flowers, I’m damn well going to have a blooming yard of signs.  

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Prior blogs in this series: The original It’s a Sign, followed by Looking For Local Loos, 50 Years Later, and What the L?