Small Triumphs
We always used Ed's old reel mower for the lawn at our old place on Iglehart. When we moved, we accepted a gas mower from my parents which they bought (new) 4 or 5 years ago, only a few months before they decided to get a condo. Once things started growing at the new place, we discovered that the previous owners didn't weed the least a couple years. I diligently uprooted dandelions and thistles after work for a couple weeks, in between trying to get the old house on the market and unpacking at the new place. Meanwhile, Alyssa struggled through her landed cost homework from her day job and planned a bachelorette party in Kansas, and the lawn just kept growing, because (of course) the mower that hasn't run in 5 years is full of slugs or something.
Alyssa went down to Kansas a few days early for the wedding, and (full disclosure here) I forgot to take our mower to my mechanic friend from work so that he could fiddle with it while we were gone. In my defense, I did remember to sleep and to feed myself.
When we returned from the wedding, we found what Alyssa described as a "hayfield" in our backyard. It was less obvious in the front, because the dandelions that cover the front yard were up to my knees. I returned to weeding full-tilt, clipping off the seed-heads (which burst if you uproot the plant with them still attached), and it took me three days to overtake the constantly-maturing flowers. I eventually got Steve and the mower together in the same place. He fixed several minor problems with it in his spare time over the next week, none of which did the trick. In the meantime, we got an abatement order from the city.
Since our mower was still grumpy and we didn't feel like paying the city $240/hour, I accepted our neighbors' generous loan of their mower, which was just returning from being repaired by another local. Alyssa weed-ate her way across the entire lawn, chopping it in half, to give the mower a chance. Our neighbor's trusty mower (which he bought because it happens to be primary green and yellow, to match his Packers obsession, not because of any particular lawn-shortening aptitude) got me through about 40 square feet of lawn before it decided it wanted more attention from its favorite mechanic.
So, with 24 hours to go, I told Alyssa I would leave work early the next day and either bring home our mower if (it had been fixed) or rent one from the local spot on my way home, which is only $25-$40. When I told my manager (the other Steve) that I had to leave early and rent a lawn mower, he redirected me to my boss's house, which is nearby, where Steve's spare lawnmower has been moping, neglected, in the garage. Alyssa surprised me by also taking the afternoon off, and we had a very nice afternoon of intense yard work, which is excellent nesting behavior.
Steve's mower had some quirky wheels, which gave me a chance to use my RoboGrip for the first time (andsomewherea Bob Vila got its wings), and it made it through the entire lawn before the handle fell off and the wing nut disappeared into the grass. I nervously yanked stray stalks of grass from the flowerbeds until it was too dark to see, then I went to bed.
We didn't get a visit from the city, or a bill, and I started calling the Community Services office to make sure everything was okay. (I was still anxious because we have an ornamental garden, and we don't know what any of it is, and every few weeks I realize another one of our "ornamentals" is an obnoxious weed.) I made another pass over the lawn with the borrowed mower (using a spare nut from one of Alyssa's xylophone stools), and we found the mower's missing part while raking up the clippings. After two weeks of pestering the city, I finally got confirmation yesterday that we resolved the lawn problem and the order has been dismissed. Or quashed, or something.
Anyhow, I'm excited to be home and do some serious weeding with my wife. musicin68 and beltramgregor will join us, as will his parents, which is really the crux of the plan. I'm sure my mom will be jealous. When she's not being a librarian, though, gardening is Lisa's thing; I don't think I know any stories about her that don't involve gardening or forcing good behavior on her children, and most of them cover both. So, the plan is that Lisa will be able to tell us which of our ornamentals we should tend and which we should deracinate with extreme prejudice. After we get our hands dirty for a while, we'll grill some brats and I'll bake some Hollace Hollis fries, and it will be just like Summer. If we get really adventurous, we might even walk downtown to catch North Saint Paul's old car show. We missed the Highway 61 Bluegrass Band last week, but there seems to be a "special event" by a local custom paint shop, which encourages potential customers to detail their grandmothers' coffee makers.
So, if any of you happen to glance outside and see the leaden clouds lumbering across the sky, or hear the rattling of precipitation on your roof, please join me in my denial of rain.
This is not happening.