Ahhh.....spring. That time of the year when we all have visions of turning our hum-drum yards into showplaces like this:
Nurseries and the garden departments at the home improvement stores call this the "100 days of hell" as people come out of the walls buying plants and new sod and seeds. I've been there myself. Fresh air, sunshine, being outside without sweating....wonderful!
But by early August, however, my song was more like "I fought the lawn and the lawn won."
At some point in history somebody....I'm guessing maybe Karl Marx or one of Adolph Hitler's ancestors....decided we didn't have enough to do just surviving and should spend hours and hours outside every week manicuring the field in front of our houses. Bastards!
Here was an average summer week for me: Wake up on Friday morning at 5 am, ready to mow as soon as the sun popped it's head. By 9, dripping wet due to the early morning 99 degree heat, I had mowed, edged, weed-whacked, de-weeded the flower beds, and blown all the grass residue down the street where in theory it would somehow magically disappear. This gave me Saturday and Sunday free.
But because Southern Botanical had come and fertilized my lawn the week before and it had come a little rain shower on Sunday evening, by Monday my yard was looking pretty shaggy again. Naturally all my neighbors were in a headlong competition to win the Yard of the Month from our HOA, while I was just hoping to not come in dead last.
So Monday evening at 7 pm, as the temp was on it's way down from its mid-day hell-on-earth 105, I was back out with that damn lawnmower, just hoping the guy across the street and two houses down would let his go, assuring me #119 to his #120.
Screw buying flowers when I had little yellow ones popping up everywhere for free. Yes indeed, I definitely had a green thumb. Johnson grass is green. So is crabgrass. And I learned I was quite the entomologist, too. I always had chinch bugs, grub worms, and other assorted crawlies cavorting all over my yard like it was their Six Flags. WooHoo!
I finally had my "gesundheit" moment (my 600th sneeze of the week +/-) and threw in the towel. I hired a yard-mowing crew to come weekly and do all those lawn chores I so hated. I timed them....their truck came to a screeching halt out front, 3 guys jumped out, and in 14 minutes they had done all those things that used to take me 3 hours.
Sorry kids, but I spent all your inheritance. And loved every minute of it. F__k you Karl Marx!
S
