I started thinking about lawn mowing the other day. No, not about mowing my lawn but just the whole subject in general. I look at mowing the lawn as one of those household chores that is nothing but an exercise in futility.
Think about it, depending on where you live, I am in the Northeast, you mow the lawn today and in two days it needs to be mowed again. What’s the point? Why not let it wait another two days? Or four? Heck, why even do it at all. At least when you do other pain in the ass yard work, like raking leaves, you only have to do it once and then not again for another twelve months.
Regarding raking leaves, over the course of many years, I tried every conceivable strategy to make raking leaves easier. At the time, the house in which I was living had a yard full of oak trees, which tend to have many leaves. One year I waited until I could see that all the leaves had fallen, figuring I would only have to do it once. In theory, this was a good idea, except for the fact that oak trees are notorious for holding onto their leaves for as long as possible. Raking leaves in late November is no better than raking them in October, in fact, it is usually cold, raw and damp.
Then there was the year I decided to split the yard into sections and do each section twice. Again, in theory, this was a good plan except for the fact that when the New England wind would blow, it would remove and evenly distribute the leaves throughout the yard, including the sections I had already raked.
Finally, I had the idea that if I just left them there in the spring they would all be gone. Unfortunately, after the snow melted, the leaves were still there, except a lot wetter and harder to pick up. I will say that in the house I now live in, this strategy actually works. You see, when the wind picks up off the lake it blows all my leaves into my neighbor’s yard and Bob has to pick them up. Good man that Bob.
Anyway back to mowing the lawn. I can remember the ex-wife would always want me to spend my day off outside cutting the grass. She would always let me know how our yard looked so much worse than the neighbors. Of course, I would reply that if the neighbor didn’t like the way our lawn looked he was more than welcome to come over and cut it himself. Now that I think of it, this could be one of the reasons she is now my ex-wife.
And I just don’t understand why people would want to spend all their time putting things on their lawns in order to make it grow more. You know the guy, he gets up early Sunday morning, starts the lawn tractor, mows the lawn then spreads Scotts Turf Builder
The same thing with watering it. Pffffttttt, click, pffffft, click, neighborhoods are full of this sound as people turn on the sprinkler systems. All in order to make the grass they just cut grow some more.
Now, I do have to admit, after the lawn has been mowed it does look a whole lot nicer. The green is greener, the various lawn accouterments seem to pop from the landscape and there is nothing quite like the smell of a fresh cut lawn. Yup, sure is wonderful, I just wish my neighbor would hurry up and get over here to mow it.
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