I heard a story yesterday about a man who accidentally drank shoe cleaner (and his subsequent problems) thinking it was water. Why he was keeping it in the refrigerator, I’m not sure. But anyway, he had finished some yard work and was quite thirsty.
This is what you get for mowing your lawn.
Some of my earliest memories involve hearing the lawn mower running on Saturday mornings. It was like the executioner’s song. My Dad and I had a deal (although I wasn’t present for the negotiation nor was I consulted) that he would mow the hills and I would mow the flat parts.
The highest point in Monticello, Illinois is the Interstate overpass. So I did most of it.
We moved to Texas. This didn’t improve things. It was flat as a pancake.
About age 15, I remember making a promise to myself that I would never mow a lawn again if it didn’t kill me (I often had visions of falling down and running myself over) before I left home for college.
The next 20 years saw me mow the lawn an average of twice a year, usually at great expense to my relationship with my landlord or my wife. The landlords would yell, the wife wouldn’t say a word. I preferred yelling.
Once, I hired some guys to do it, but when they did a terrible job, I complained. They refused to come back. This is one of the stupidest things I have ever done.
In North Carolina, we had centipede grass. It is a vine. It doesn’t grow much. Also, we made sure pine straw covered as much as possible, preventing growth. I bought extra pine straw to cover the areas with no pine trees. One of the first fights I had with Holli was when I caught her raking the pine straw and putting it around the trees. She hasn’t been out in the yard since.
Currently, due to some great fortune and complete lack or irony, we have a gardener. Often, he sleeps instead of working. But the lawn gets mowed.
Works for me.
