The Scent of Grass
Aside
“Our
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues…”
The Glory of the Garden
by
Rudyard Kipling
I was going to spend the afternoon working on a post which required a bit of reading and fiddling with photos. And then I caught sight of the lawn. It was a foot high. Since our abortive week-end MTL hasn’t felt like mowing although he is painting the sun room. When Karen was here on Thursday it was too wet to do it and I prefer her to do the more creative things. Any body can mow a lawn – I used to think.
I AM. SO. KNACKERED.
Yes dear reader I did it myself and I hope the neighbours didn’t hear my ejaculations. The mower is electric with long, long wires and extensions and a plug on the upright that comes out every few minutes. The trick is to avoid running over the wire and to keep the engine running clutching a lever below the handle. I think once the grass is a reasonable length I’ll manage it. I found it very difficult and am left with ridges of couch grass and mown grass everywhere That’s everywhere.
Once I’ve gone down the ridges and sheared the edges and raked up the grass on the lawn and swept it off all the paths it should be fine. That’ll be tomorrow then.
Can anyone tell me why we have lawns? Oh the good news: mowing is the new work out. OK so my back is aching – in fact I’m aching everywhere – but I know tomorrow I shall be the right side of 9 stone. Betcha!
22 comments:
Great! You've taken up grass-cutting!
I've got an acre plus here for your next effort.
And BTW, the house next to ours is vacant, and I expect to see bison grazing there any moment. Would you mind terribly doing that, too?
Thanks. You're a dear.
Cheers.
My father has been working on the lawn and it's tired him as well.
Michele sent me.
The lawns are for croquet, surely?
Oh, and if the scales look wrong, you can reassure yourself that muscle weighs more than fat.
Well, you've asked an excellent question. Why DO we have lawns? Because they're so lovely!
Michele sent me today...again. Hope you're well.
Randall: I did expect a little sympathy and understanding from you.
Jean-luc: what is the younger generation coming to? You're supposed to help your aged parents.
Kim: I don't wan to end up like those female weight lifters.
Karen : well I thought that when I was just an observer.
you need a goose or two!
obviously.
then you'd never have to mow again...
Oh yes, my lawn seems to have been sprinkled liberally with Miracle Grow too! I spent a lovely afternoon down towards your neck of the woods in Dunster. It was lovely. My lawn therefore still needs to be mowed so I have that to do one evening this week!
Michele sent me back but it's always nice to visit :)
AMY:How are your geese?
Bob-kat: if it was today you were lucky with the weather. We had planned to do a garden visit but both felt too indolent. The visit woudld have been less exhausting:)
I did some weeding today and my poor body doesn't take well to bending and squatting! Hope we both feel better tomorrow!
lucky you to have grass to mow - I have no croquet pitch at the moment and perfect weather to play it!
we have one of those electric things, too and I get in a tangle with the clutch handle thingy, the cable, the grass collection bin and the compost heap ..... luckily, when we are operational, I can leave it to LOML.
Sorry to hear YTL still not firing on all cylinders - hope he gets back to full operation soon!
if only it was so easy to get the right side of 9 stone.
belle
Judy: I finished off the job this morning and apart from feeling as if my neck is in a vice I'm fine. Hot bath I think.
Belle: I don't know why we haven't a grass collector bin - it would save all the raking - as long as it wouldn't make it too heavy for me to push. I fear it is probably going to be my job now but MTL still enjoys cooking and shopping for which I am intensely grateful and is painting the sun room. That reminds me he brought me yellow roses yesterday - I must go and arrange them ie stick 'em in another vase:)
Mowing the grass (I wouldn't call ours a lawn) is one job I like and can do with relative success. However, if yours was too long no wonder you had problems. Hope the aches and pains have gone now!
I get Todd to mow my lawn for me (@ €5). I once nagged Q to do it for so long that I simply went out and started myself - I've never seen him shoot out of the house so fast and take over. Anything rather than having to put up with me and a bad back.
And my lawn mower is so rubbish that it really does do my back in.
I had a choice. Mow the lawn of pave it. Guess which I chose?
Anyroad, our garden is small and long and thin so the grass only grew in odd patches.
I'm goin' t' post me garden 'cause I like it. Dunno if anyone else will but I do so there!
The Sage mowed the lawn a couple of weeks ago, except the part where we cleared away a hedge so as to enlarge the lawn. I don't know why he left that, but I'm going to go out now and scythe it; it's far too long for the mower.
I hate mowing the lawn. It was better at our last house, where we had a large enough area of grass for a sit-on mower. We all vied with each other to cut the grass then.
Sandy: thanks for asking. Not quite.
zoe: I wish one of the boys were near enough to help. I have my eyes on two boys in the lane.
Manic: I wrote a long comment on why you shouldn't pave and it's vanished dammit!
Z: it is difficult to work out how men's minds work and they think we are the problem:)
I don't have grass any more, it's too wet here and the garden was like a bog. Now I have a decent sized brick terrace and the rest is currently covered in bark shards but this summer will see that replaced with gravel. Since we got rid of the grass I was suddenly able to use the garden almost everyday from March to about October, before I would go whole summers without setting foot in it, except to mow occasionally.
I've been planting for the last few days, digging big holes and shoving things in, my back's killing me now. But I do like a bit of manual labour.
Eryl: you have obviously done the right thing. Manual labour can be very therapeutic - if it doesn't kill you:)
The dad of a friend of mine mowed over the electrical cord and gave himself a terrible shock. It affected him mentally, he became very irritable and even violent sometimes and had to quit work on disability allowance. He had been such a jolly fellow and then one day, Boom! He became very much changed and unhappy. It was terrible for his family too.
LOL, LOL...You are incredible, Pat. Mowing that lawn yourself! Bless You, my dear....I cannot believe you did that! I'm hurting just thinking about it...lol!
Sam: that's an awful thing to happen. We have special cut out switches for out door jobs but I try to be extra careful as nothing is fail safe IMO.
Naomi: yes I do feel quite proud of myself:)
Post a Comment