Tag Archives: yard work

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.

My Republican Friends Are Right

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They tell me life is filled with risks. People die all the time from lots of different things. So why shutdown the economy over a stinkin’ virus.

I didn’t realize their amazing insight until today when I hit the yard HARD. Trimmed trees and bushes. Mowed. Edged. Blowed. Don’t hate me because the place looks so good.

Some of the bushes are twice my height necessitating a ladder. When working on parts of the bushes, I don’t have sufficient space to spread the legs properly so I simply lean the ladder against the bush. “Friends” who sometimes call me Slip because of my propensity to fall while running on ice in the winter, know where this is going. At one point, a bush I was leaning too heavily against gave out and TIMBER! Somehow I survived the fall but not without scaring The Good Wife who came running from the house fretting who she’d get to trim the bushes next year.

A little rain and lasagna later, I was mowing the steep short hill in the backyard overlooking the Salish Sea. Surprise, surprise, I slipped, this time going down faster than a Porsche Taycan. Total yard sale. Somehow, like an elite cowboy, I held on to the mower keeping it from disappearing over the bluff. And even though no one was watching, I immediately bounced up like Marshawn Lynch after a hard tackle.

Fast forward four hours. I thought I was done with dinner, but The Gal Pal requested “one more egg”. Well, of course, but plugging the cord back into the skillet is hard ya’ll. Burned my middle finger. I’d show you a picture, but I respect you too much.

The plan from here is to watch a little t.v., read in the tub, and ever so slowly climb into bed to fight another day. On second thought, the tub requires two big steps, so maybe a shower.