Tag Archives: lawns

Let Me Take Care Of It

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‘member when I said one huge advantage of the new crib is the time I’ll save maintaining the much smaller yard?

The truth of the matter is, I kinda like yard work because the results are immediately visible, the exact opposite of my efforts to educate the next gen. Or my efforts to contribute to the common good more generally.

Right now, I’m bouncing back and forth between the old, still unsold house, and the new one. Yes, as a matter of fact, it does take real muscles to lift the mower in the back of the hatchback.

Yesterday, post shitty weather, I hit the Nature Park hard. There were an infinite number of brown pine seeds, leaves, branches, weeds, overgrown shrubs, but they were no match for me. First, blow. Then recharge batt. Then, pick up branches, pick largest weeds, toss pine cones over the outfield wall. Second, trim bushes front and back. Third, take recharged batt and blow a second time, moving bush clippings, leaves, and pine cone seeds into yard. Fourth, suck up said detritus while mowing with bag (verus the usual mulch). Fifth, pick up small branches that mower missed. Sixth, blow again because you can never blow enough.

It looked like like a million dollars. Or more.

A friend in North Carolina referred to “Mow, blow, and go” guys with derision. Screw that. It’s all about mowing, blowing, and going as fast as possible. Get the heart rate up and don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the pretty good.

Maybe when I close the classroom door for the last time, I’ll start a lawn business. Running between two houses is fun, but I imagine running between 10 would be 5x as fun. I’m workshopping names, let me know what you think. I saw a sign/advert yesterday while cycling for Lawn Boys and immediately thought of “Lawn Boy”,” a “take that” to that evil woman at Burgerville. Or maybe,”Mow, Blow, and Go”? Catchphrase, “Let me mow, blow, and go for you.”

The best part of this plan is I’ll have to buy a pickup truck. Well, that and what the GalPal is going to do when she sees my sweaty self get out of the truck after a long day of mowing, blowing, and going. Hubba hubba.

Are You Crazy?

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I am. Came to that conclusion the other day while mowing my lawn for the first time since late last fall when it was largely leaves.

As I criss-crossed the lawn, I wondered, what on earth am I doing? Why do we even have a lawn? Best I can tell, there’s three reasons to have a lawn. First, we have lawns to occasionally play croquet or badminton on or in Tiger’s case, to learn to chip. Second, many of us have lawns because we grew up in suburbia meaning we are captives of our childhoods. An extremely difficult to shake lawn aesthetic is deeply ingrained in our subconscious. So deeply ingrained we hardly ever question it. Third, we have lawns because the alternative, more public parks near where we live smacks of socialism.

Lawn lunacy is largely explained by nostalgia for our past coupled with an insidious individualism.

Maybe ten percent of lawns make sense. Meaning children play on them semi-regularly or people get great satisfaction from tending them. For people like us whose children are Gone Girl, lawns make zero sense. Especially when I’m thinking what I could be doing instead of pacing back and forth contributing to global warming, thus making it so I have to mow earlier and more often seemingly every year.

It’s completely whacked, by which I mean I’m whacked. As irrational as Paul McCartney’s hair as seen on SNL’s 40th ann. I felt sorry for “Sir” Paul. Not a gray hair on his 72 year old head. How sad to feel you have to maintain a youthful image that late in life. If I make it to 72, not giving a shit about my (probably amazing) appearance will be the most silver of linings. That and living somewhere without a lawn.