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July 16, 2009

Mowing The Lawn

An article on Make Online caught my eye. At first I thought I would email it to my hubby but it has turned into a post for my blog. Hubster can read about it here.

The article may be more interesting to me since I do not mow the lawn. Hubby has happily joined the neighborhood mower guys association. It has been fun for me to see him check out the length of the leaves, the color, the height of the mowed lawn, the moisture content, and lament a dry patch or cuss at the lawn mower. There seems to be a silent competition in the neighborhood regarding the condition of the lawns. Maybe the maintenance of the lawns is so high on the priority list because of all the winter months when there is no green lawn. Just white powder and slush and sand and salt. The first week that a lawn shows green there are multiple lawn mower sounds throughout the area and from then on the game begins. When we walk throughout the neighborhood, the men will have a buddy with them, or at least their dog, and they will be working in the yard. I used to think how awful that some poor hard working man would get a day off his job and have to spend the day slaving away in his yard. Not true! They love it!! And if a man across the street comes out while one is working in his yard, the two of them compare lawns and fertilizer and weed control and tools (don't get me started on tools!) There are different ways to mow the lawn, not just back and forth or around and around. There are designs to mow into the lawn. Amazing.

Oh oh oh, I just realized, I can do a whole post another time on the LAWN MOWER and the WEED EATER.

5 comments:

j.sterling said...

omfg, that is hilarious. i guess i should um.... grow some grass? lol

Jo said...

You know, in Vancouver in the summer, it gets so hot and dry, the lawns go dormant. No one mows the lawn from early June until mid-September. I have a friend in Iowa who has a riding lawn mower and it takes him five hours to mow the lawn. I think he lives on a golf course. :-)

CiCi said...

Hi Jennster, this has been a learning experience for me to see the neighborhood men and the pride in their lawns.

Jo, I have been to Vancouver a few times. Really like it there actually. If we hadn't moved here to Nebraska Vancouver was my second choice. There are plenty of riding lawn mowers here too.

jozien said...

Hi there, nice to meet you! I love the way you write and the the topics you write about.
psst. funny enough, i do not care for lawnmowers, can i say that softly?:)

JamesRaven said...

I beg your pardon, my dear spouse. When we arrived here in the small mid-western town with a yard, you apparently missed the Order Of The Toro Ceremony. It happened while you were sleeping.

After the induction, which involves hot chili and gas passed in the same key, one must immediately go to Sears and buy the reddest mower on sale, then try to figure out that nozzle on the hyper-red gas can. There is also the Craftsman Craftsmen Code of Lawncraft. Same campfire song, just pitched a bit lower.

In the early spring, one lifts nostrils and perks ears, scenting fresh-cut grass and listening for well-maintained mowers in action. If a mower isn't in perfect running order, we all join voices, yelling our specific tribe's code, put our mowers in our big-ass pickup trucks, and descend en masse upon the local lawnmower repair place.

We bow to the butt-crack of all the assembled lawnmower workers, and drool over the riding mowers we will never need, until the guy behind the counter gives us the estimate, and by definition it cannot be less than the original purchase price.

But it doesn't matter. We belong. We can make loud noises and run over branches. Once finished, we can begin the most mystifying of all our ceremonies:

The Weed Whacker Whammy.