Monday, March 27, 2006

Mow Better Blues

Last weekend, my lawnmower saw the light of day for the first time since October 2005.

Saturday
I rolled my mower out of the shed and brought it into the patio for seasonal maintenance: drained old oil; poured in new oil; cleaned out air filter housing; replaced air filter; replaced spark plug; gave the whole mower a half-assed, once-over wipe down with an already dirty rag. I felt that was sufficient progress for a Saturday afternoon, so I rolled that sumbitch back in the shed, grabbed a beer.

Sunday
I mowed my lawn--at least the parts of it that were not still crunchy from last Fall's drought. We've had just enough interspersed rain [thunder storms] and sunlight recently to revive my little St. Augustine & Miscellaneous Weed-covered plat.

And so it begins--yard work.
I don't like yard work, but I'm too cheap to pay somebody else to do it. By the time I finish mowing, I'm usually too lazy or too exhausted to edge. And you can forget about hedge trimming and clipping. So our yard doesn't look as nice as the neighbors' yards. Well, I'm neither retired nor do I have a teenager or two to do that shit for me. But I do have a wife. And now is the time to get the Mrs. on board for some much needed landscape maintenance.

I can already count Kim out for mowing. She's mowed twice in the two years we've been in our current house. The first time, she managed to spill gasoline on the grass, killing a two square-foot patch of primo St. Augustine [we don't have too much of that to go around]. The second time, she mowed in July when it was hot and humid outside. I was at work on a Saturday [extremely busy], and she telephoned to complain how exhausted she was from mowing the lawn. I'm pretty sure that was the end her mowing career. So yours truly is the designated mower.

When Kim gets motivated to weed the garden or trim the hedges, though, she usually tears into it. The problem is that there's a ton of work to be done [our hedges are out of control], and we are seldom motivated to take on the task at the same time. And as Spring becomes Summer, and Summer becomes Hell on Earth, neither one of us wants to be out in the yard longer than the time it takes to check the mailbox. So we have to strike while the weather is cool. That means dedicating the next few weekends to our lawn. It won't be fun: there will be blood, sweat, and tears. And mosquito bites. But if we can get the bulk of the work done now, maintaining it for the rest of the season will be so much easier.

Right?

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