Lawn Scare

It was another gorgeous day yesterday. Which, of course, made me feel sick to my stomach.

Each beautiful day brings the sound of another neighbor mowing his lawn for the first time this year. Or in the case of the fastidious Doctor Turkleton, for the seventh time.

And whenever I hear that tell-tale roar, I usually feel quite pleased—it’s a pleasant sound with pleasant connotations normally—but this year I just feel nauseated. Because I know I should be mowing my lawn, and if I don’t soon, that I’ll find myself in a grass hole again, unable to keep up with the green beast. (Note: not the green-eyed monster, nor the beast-with-two-backs, nor even the Green Monster.)

But I can’t. My lawn mower’s broken and because I’m an idiot, I didn’t get it fixed during the winter like I should have and now there’s a month-long wait at the shop. And I can’t afford a new one and I can’t afford a lawn service. And I can’t even borrow a mower because our lawn is just too hard on mowers and that’d be a totally uncool thing to do to someone nice enough to loan their mower to the guy who’s gone through three in four years. So I am, basically, completely and totally screwed.

And it’s not like it goes unnoticed. Pal Sarah axed if we really get comments from neighbors about our yard.

Oh yes. Yes indeed. Yes we do.

Just today Top Management and I were in the drug store looking to score some crack (she settled for a Milky Way Dark) when we saw a really nice lady from the down the street who we hadn’t seen at all over the winter or, more important for the purposes of this story, who hadn’t seen us all winter.

"Oh my!" she said happily, upon spying Top Management’s impossible-to-miss belly. "I had no idea! Wow, has it really been that long?"

Informed that, apparently her eyes were not deceiving her and it had indeed been that long, she smiled and nodded. "Well, that explains it, then. I mean, I knew you weren’t really able to get out in the yard much last summer because of all the health problems with The Boy, but I assumed he was all better by now. But now I see why you haven’t been able to get out this spring either! Oh well!" And she happily touched the lump that is young Britney.

Even The Boy stared at her in disbelief.

So, seriously, I really don’t know what I’m going to do. Apparently some of the neighbors grew so "concerned" last year—and by that I mean unhappy (picture villagers with torches, only make sure the villagers all drive SUVs, or at least their toddlers do)—with the state of our yard that they were thinking of starting up a kinda Lawn Care Charity for us, the way they do with meals, only in this case rather than fixing us dinner, they’d be forcing their husbands to mow our lawn.

Well-intentioned as she knew they were (for the most part), that did not go over so big with Top Management.

So. That’s where we is. Can’t do anything, can’t do nothing.

But that suggestion someone posted last time about getting a sheep? It’s sounding better all the time. There’s a farm at the entrance to our lil’ paradise. Maybe I’ll see if they’ll loan me one.

Comments

[sam]

I won't pretend that my own yard problems are even close to your own. Through my own procrastination and laziness, I find that having mowed once so far, I really need to rake aggressively and remove all the build up of dead grass and leaves from last fall. I think I'm killing my yard by having allowed the grass to grow up through this patchwork of dead nature.
My mower works fine, and my yard needs to be mowed, and it won't hurt me or the mower. I've just been lazy for so long that I've allowed the job to become much more difficult than it should be.
I should be mowing now, yet you can see what I'm doing instead. But I swear, after this next cartoon, the boys are getting dressed, we're having lunch and going outside. Seriously!

[fish]

Amazing how are perversions of the natural become rulers of our life. Living in the near 'burbs, our lawn consists of a few small patches of green on each side of the house, yet I resent the efforts required to keep those patches at the "acceptable length". I start to get nauseated when someone describes spending the whole weekend gardening (with a smile on their face). I have had conversations with my mother in-law where she basically said: "When you grow up, you will enjoy gardening. Have to side with Roger Daltry on this one. Hope I die before I get old...

[Scott]

I should be mowing now, yet you can see what I'm doing instead. But I swear, after this next cartoon, the boys are getting dressed, we're having lunch and going outside. Seriously!

Ah, a man after my own (somewhat lax, in my case) heart. Time much better spent.

I start to get nauseated when someone describes spending the whole weekend gardening (with a smile on their face).

Top Management actually loves gardening, she’s just too unwieldy to do much of it right now. I’m fit as a fiddle (a somewhat unfit and extremely lazy fiddle, admittedly), but I can’t stand gardening. I dig nature. I’d simply rather not dig in nature. I’d really rather it was, you know, natural.

We were driving home from the midwife’s the other day and I looked out across a big all-natural field that had a stream off in the distance and I thought that there’d probably be few things I’d enjoy more than taking a comfy tailgating type o’ folding chair out there with an iPod (if I had an iPod) and listening to music and watching the water tumble by. Vaughan Williams’ Pastoral might be an overly obvious choice, but there ‘tis anyway. Or maybe In a Silent Way. Mmm.

So I was actually thinking of pulling the post down before y’all responded. Upon reading it, Top Management warned me that it wouldn’t be unlike my father-in-law to buy me a new lawn mower, which was certainly not my intent. And just then—before reading this piece, although she’s a regular reader o’ Left of the Dial—my mother-in-law, who’s already in town for the birth of the rather tardy Britney, handed Top Management a check for this year’s lawn care. Said she was trying to figure out what’d make a good baby present and realized that there’s little we need more than to have our yard taken care of for us.

Unbelievably sweet and oh so correct. Moreover, it’s got the added benefit of being a baby gift for the neighbors as well. And if that takes some of the joy out of it for me, well, so be it.

Oh, and in case anyone’s wondering, the neighbors have also been hoping I’ll get a new cherryburst or honeyburst Les Paul. Just so’s you know.

[Becky]

We stopped mowing the lawn because there are better things to do, especially on a farm. But it didn't stop passing neighbors from making comments that our patch looked rather like a wildlife preserve.

When lo and behold it turned into one. We have about 10 nesting pairs of meadowlarks, and aren't surprised anymore when visitors look around startled upon hearing the so-melodious-it-sounds-fake song and say, "I haven't heard a meadowlark in years." Well, if they didn't scalp their lawns and then drench them in chemicals, and gnash teeth over every dandelion, they might have some too.

So the meadowlarks make a dandy excuse now : )

[Steve the LLamabutcher]

Hey, and here I am, I've got a full tank of gas, and some free time to spare tomorrow morning (or any other time that works with Top Management). I draw the line at wearing livery, though.

[Steve the LLamabutcher]

Sheep? Maybe, but I think goats might be more efficient. That way you could skip the stratocaster and go straight for a banjo.......

[fish]

Steve's got an inflatable sheep he will loan you...