I love to mow the lawn. Okay, there I said it. When we lived in Texas we had a normal house in a normal neighborhood. I could mow, trim, and edge the front and back yard in 1.5 hours. Mowing is very therapeutic for me. I just go into pure thinking mode and start mowing. It is so monotonous that after an hour and a half of walking back and forth, I feel as though I have had a wonderful break from the busyness of life. I love to stand back and look when I have completed my task. I love the lines in the freshly cut grass. I love the smell of crisp wetness. I love the grass that sticks to my ankles and shoes...they are a sign of hard work. I love the sweat that rolls down my back between my shoulder blades. Building up a sweat makes me feel like I have actually done something worth a pat on the back. The beautiful lines that the yard now has...they are straight. The curb is cut at a perfect right angle. There is no trace of leftover grass after I have blown it all away. To me, a freshly cut yard is an elegant thing. It is an art form. Not everyone has the talent to make something so disheveled look so alluring.
Yesterday, for the first time, I took the challenge of mowing our new yard. After the first 1.5 hours, it started to lose its therapeutic affect on me, and I was only halfway done with the back yard! Let me explain why:
Here is my backyard from a far angle. See how big it is? This picture doesn’t do justice. So in the immediate area surrounding the patio, is beautiful grass. See here:
Surrounding the outside of our beautiful grass is grass that is tousled and scruffy. It is sporadic, and has dirt patches through it. See here:
Mowing this area is...well lets just say it is about as fun as cleaning out a dog’s ears. There are so many of these dry patches that sit in the shade. It is hard to see if I have even mowed them...this is partly because after one pass through dirt flies up in the air and I can’t see anything ahead of me. So here I am, at a crossroads (like how I dramatize that?). Do I mow this mess, or do I leave it be? You really can’t see from the patio if this area has been mowed. I know the Chief wouldn’t bother with it. Should I? So after choosing the high road, I began my decent into the wonderful world of 89% dirt and 11% grass. After 20 minutes of that exciting amusement, I decided that I would stop mowing the dirt and come back to it later if I wanted to. So I go back to the challenge of mowing the part of the yard that has grass in it....ahhh....back to relaxation.
After the back yard I move to the front, and come across a brand new challenge. Here is our front yard:
Here is my challenge:
Rocks. Do I mow over them? I have never come across this dilemma before. In Texas there were no rocks. Here, in Connecticut, we live on top of one big freaking rock. Examples of the amount of rocks we have. The obvious rock in the middle of our back yard:
Here our rock wall in our back yard (we have one in the front too):
Here is just two random rocks in the middle of our soft, luscious grass.
Okay so we have as many rocks, as Angelina has kids. There is no escaping them. It is almost as if the rocks and trees have a war, to see who can be in more abundance. I think the rocks would win. And just because the previous owners didn’t think they had enough, they had more brought in! These stupid little white ones.
Back to my challenge. Do I run the mower over these pesky little rocks? Are they going to fly out from under the mower and implant in the side of my leg? Is the mower going to appreciate this, or is it going to grown and cry? I decided that if I broke the mower, that might be a good thing because we would just decide to buy a riding lawn mower next time. So here goes, I held my breath and I ran the mower over them making sure to get all the random tall pieces of grass. Nothing happened. The mower didn’t shoot out little rock pellets. It didn’t even make a peep. Damn! I would now how to figure out another way to get a riding lawn mower. After 2.5 hours of mowing, I was tired, dirty, and itchy. I now know that the peace I love to get from mowing is only good for the first 1.5 hours. After that, it is just plain ugliness.
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