Peering into the English yew bush at the author's home yielded a surprising view. (Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald)

I have lived on the same small plot of ground for almost 30 years and I believed, after that considerable span, that the place had lost its capacity to surprise me.

I believed, to put it another way, that I had seen the 9,000 square feet in all its guises.

I have walked every foot of its perimeter, dirtied my fingernails with its soil, looked at the house from a myriad of vantage points — sprawled on the soft grass, creeping slowly on the roof to check a loose shingle, perched on a ladder with a paint roller in one hand.

I have watched the place in all seasons, have shoveled snow until sweat beaded my face despite subzero temperatures, have clipped the grass and plucked the dandelions that I will never quite vanquish.

I have seen the trees that my wife and I planted grow, their trunks expanding from the thickness of my wrist to a broad bole I can’t embrace in full. I have watched the willows and the ash and the aspens cast off their leaves each autumn and bear a new crop each spring.

It is home.

I cherish it in that special and unique way we reserve for places so familiar that, when we cross their boundary, we feel sheltered from the sometimes troubled world beyond, bask in an embrace as soothing as a cool balm spread on sunburned skin.

I have this spring spent more time than usual on the east side of the property, what I suppose I would call the front yard since it’s nearest the front door.

(Although we scarcely use the front door, preferring the side door that gives onto the laundry room and kitchen, which unlike the front hallway isn’t blocked by obstacles that would trip up even a nimble intruder. This leads inevitably to confusion when someone visits who isn’t accustomed to our peculiar entrance habits.)

I sowed grass seed on a couple patches, and, like a puppy which is not quite housebroken, they require frequent attention.

I laid a hose so its spray can reach all the spots with fragile germination.

While attending to this chore — several times a day in hot, dry weather, as I trust the water-holding capacity of my soil no more than I would trust a puddle-prone puppy — I stand in a sort of alcove between a willow and an oval-shaped area occupied by three shrubs.

I planted the bushes — a burning bush, a tamarisk and an English yew — inside a raised bed confined by a low wall of concrete blocks.

Three decades on, the shrubs have long since sprawled well beyond that boundary. I can’t recall when I last could see the blocks without hunkering down and pushing aside a branch or two, but I suspect George W. Bush was president then.

The yew’s expansion has been especially impressive.

When I set its roots in the soil, the bush was about as big around as a basketball.

Now it’s taller than the house and as wide as a city street.

As I was standing there on a recent afternoon, dousing the new grass, a robin flitted past, pulling my gaze with it.

I ended up peering into a narrow gap in yew branches.

The view surprised me so much that I stepped a few paces closer. I hadn’t realized, until that moment, that the yew limbs were something of a screen, a wall of dark green foliage that hid a grotto.

I thrust my head into the opening and saw a space I probably hadn’t seen for a quarter century or more.

There were drifts of desiccated willow leaves, the last trace of chlorophyll long ago leached.

The remnants of a bird nest, perhaps assembled by the scrub jays that often loiter nearby.

Most poignant, a child’s rubber ball that probably was last touched by either my daughter, Rheann, who’s 33, or my son, Alexander, who’s 30.

I pondered how it is that I had never, over the past couple decades, paused here and inspected this nook

It seemed to me passing strange that it didn’t happen.

And more curious still that any part of this modest parcel could have stayed so long a mystery even to me, who has spent more time than anyone among its crannies.

It was something of a revelation, and a pleasant one.

My affinity for the place was refreshed and I was reminded of how it feels to see an old friend after a separation measured in years.

How the passage of time can deepen the lines on a face — and lengthen the limbs of a shrub — but leave the essence of both intact, familiar and well-loved.

Jayson Jacoby is the editor of the Baker City Herald. Contact him at 541-518-2088 or jayson.jacoby @bakercityherald.com.