About a half-dozen of my neighbors were mowing their lawns when we got home from the office this evening. The guilt was so overwhelming I had to consider mowing, especially because our yard looked like a wild prairie after a week of rain. I like the look, but it doesn’t exactly fit in with the rest of the neighborhood. Someday I’m going to plow it all under and plant begonias, or hostas, or something that doesn’t need mowing.
But tonight, I got the mower out of the shed and gave the front yard its first rough cut of the season. The first cut will never look good. First of all, our yard is not a lawn, by which I mean it’s not just Kentucky bluegrass, or whatever the grass of choice is these days. Our yard is a mix of grasses, flowers, vines, saplings, and whatever came fluttering down from the sky and took root. I don’t weed & seed our yard. I mow it about once a week, and that’s all I do to it, because I hate yard work. I think I may have mentioned that once or twice.
Mowing tonight was particularly grueling because it was relatively hot (for Wisconsin) and muggy tonight. And, I’m a lazy slug, so mowing the yard is like an hour of cardio to me. But, if I’m very lucky, I won’t have to mow it again tomorrow night. There’s no guarantee, though, after all the rain we got this past week. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see knee-high dandelions when we pull into the driveway tomorrow evening.
This Is Drivel 