After nine years of mowing our enormous lawn with a push mower, I am delighted to report that we’ve turned the job over to a professional. One of our neighbors – who also happens to be a fellow sports car enthusiast – has a lawn care business. He and his daughter mowed our lawn for the first time yesterday, but not without some critiques of its condition.
Because I grew up on a farm, I have no real concept of lawn care. As anyone who grew up in a similar environment can tell you, the “lawn” is the part of the vegetation around the house and outbuildings that you mow regularly. The rest is “pasture.” Weed control, fertilization, seeding, etc., etc., just don’t enter into the equation.
Now that I’m a suburbanite, I’d like to have a yard that at least keeps me from being the disgrace of the neighborhood – I just didn’t know where to start. Now I can remain blissfully ignorant of lawn maintenance details and let someone else take care of it. Hooray!
My one small contribution to the process was in tilling the bare earth portions of the front yard and applying grass seed earlier this week. We had a new driveway and sidewalk put in last summer, but never got around to dealing with the aftermath. Last year, some really awesome succulent weeds of a type I’ve never seen before grew on either side of the driveway in the late summer. We speculate that their seeds were trapped beneath the asphalt until it was torn up to put in the concrete. You see? Nobody who thinks that huge, creeping weeds are cool should be allowed the responsibility of creating a presentable lawn.
I’m sure my niece will be very disappointed when all our “flowers” are gone. Last weekend she carefully picked a big bouquet of dandelions because, she said, “My mommy likes flowers.” Hee! Maybe the time I save not having to pick up sticks and mow will allow me to plant some real flowers for a change. We can only hope.
Leave a Reply