George of the Jungle

All the bad weather we’ve been having the past couple of weeks combined with the market and other assorted projects have meant that the yard has been neglected, in a pretty bad way in some parts. I had all these grand ideas of clearing areas and making them more aesthetically pleasing, all of which passed without realization. It takes all I’ve got just to do routine yard maintenance, and even that’s a chore.

I finally bit the bullet and decided to mow the lawn, and it was quite the adventure. I felt like Tarzan out there. I benefit from the fact that the grass is growing slower due to the weather, but it is growing plenty fast in some parts. This is the price I pay for seeding and encouraging it to grow. For all it’s worth, it does look pretty good. The front part of the lawn, the one that people see when they drive in, has been fairly well maintained and looks good. The side sections are not doing too bad, and the part of the back are just okay. It’s the very back near the garden where things have gotten out of hand. It’s a jungle back there.

It doesn’t help that the yard is a steep hill, which makes pushing that mower quite the chore. Then again, it’s a good workout, and as I get older, I can appreciate the importance of being active and getting some exercise. Life would be easier to just cut the grass with a driving mower, but think of the lost opportunity to burn some calories. To compound the situation, when a situation starts to get out of hand, I tend to want to ignore it and hope it goes away, thus exacerbating the situation.

The grass down by the garden was about 2 feet long, I kid you not, and it clogged the mower more than a few times. The cut grass, however, sort of acts like mulch and will hopefully discourage excessive growth, but we’ll see about that. I struggled a bit with the hills, they seem steeper and more bumpy than I remember, but managed to get it done. In a perfect world, this will be the last time I mow it until next year, but somehow I doubt that’s going to happen.

Then, of course, I have raking leaves to look forward to. I can’t wait.

Until then, thanks for reading, and thanks to Marcos De Pedro for the pic.