Curses! Time to Mow the Lawn Again!

I enjoy yardwork. I love to plant things and see them grow. I love the first shoots of plants coming up in the spring (usually it is chives, and they start in February). I love the taste of a cucumber from my own garden.

I generally plant perennials because you can watch them grow from year to year. There is something wrong with annuals. They flower for a few months and then die. They're like the rocks stars of the plant world...a brilliant flash, then an early death. They seem like a waste of time and money to this gardener. Part of this, I am sure, is my own desire for permanence. Annuals are just a reminder of impermance, while perennials promise rebirth with each spring. Okay, you are probably thinking I could fertilize my garden with that last part. Maybe. With perennials, you have to be patient. You watch and tend them as they grow and wait expectantly for that first blossom. It may take years before the payoff finally comes, and the payoff may be one blossom that fades after a few days, but it is worth it.

I enjoy yardwork, except for mowing the grass. Truth be told, a scientific analysis of my lawn would show about 24% clover, 17% crab grass, 11% dandelion, 6% moss, 12% misc. weeds, 30% grass, so I don't have much "grass" to mow. But in order to mow that 30% of grass, I also have to mow the other 70%. When mowed properly, it actually doesn't look that bad from a distance. Weeds grow very fast. They don't need sun, water, or fertilizer. Apparently, all they need is my yard. I have a very large yard.

When we first moved in, the previous residents had just given up on the backyard (the previous residents will be the subject of a future post). It was over two feet deep. In some places it was almost four feet deep. I mowed it with a walk-behind mower. It was one of the scariest and bravest things that I have ever done. Some of the things I ran over with the mower are just too traumatic to discuss. Sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I would see huge living things scurrying off into the tall weeds. I might get a glimpse of the back of a leg (like that first glimpse of the alien's leg among the corn in Signs). Some of the beasts I could only perceive by the movement of the weeds; the tops of the weeds would shake and shiver and drop as the beast pushed them over with his massive body (like the overhead scene in Jurassic Park II when the raptors are chasing the humans through the tall grass). I am ashamed to admit that my neighbors' first impression of me was of "the guy who screams a lot when he mows his lawn."

At one point, my mother-in-law, who was helping us get moved in, came out to offer me some water. I was mowing, eyes darting left and right for danger, when one of the beasties got me on the back of my leg. I felt pain shoot down my leg and what felt like electricity run through my entire body. I let go of the mower and started dancing around and yelping like someone who's been stung by a hornet, which is what had happened. My mother-in-law, who saw me dancing around like a crazy man just after she shouted out her offer of water, thought that she had never seen someone so happy to be offered a glass of water and wandered what her daughter had gotten herself into.

It took me two weeks to mow the lawn.

I have a rider now. Now it only takes an hour to mow my lawn. The beasts are gone now, though I still sometimes wake up screaming.

Tomorrow: My neighbor, "the guy who curses a lot when he mows his lawn."