Rained most of the day yesterday, that meant I did NOT have to go outside and work on the yard. This is a good thing. Unlike my bride and most of my neighbors I do NOT relish the chance to get out into the yard and plant, turn soil, harvest Corgi poop. As a matter of fact, about 4 pulls on the rake and my mind becomes with preoccupied with buying a damned condo somewhere. I do not need to be a land owner to feel worth.
Last year we had some serious yard improvements done, the island jungle, a rabbit warren of junipers and assorted other stuff that was a wee bit over grown was removed and replaced with sod. This did two things, first of all, our corgi has been deprived of the joy of flushing rabbits and teaching us all a lesson about dreams. As in dreaming that he’d actually catch one, despite a life time record of 0 for 5,340.. The other thing we got from this is a 15’ diameter circle of nice lush grass in a sea of shitty stuff. Looks like a nice putting green and probably will for a while given my penchant for having crappy grass.
The old push mower did not come too after her winters sleep. I pulled the cord and get nada, no spark no nuth’n. I paid $35 for the thing on Craigs List two years ago and I’m not satisfied that I’ve got my monies worth from it yet.
The string trimmer is working, it’s electric after all. We had some really weird looking weeds growing along the side of the house. reminded me of mule’s ear, a plant I used to see up the Sierra’s when I was out west. Last year we had morels growing in the back yard so you never know what’s going to pop up out there.
After about 20 minutes of yard work I felt the need to go sit down and watch basketball. Mrs S was a little surprised to find me watching basketball and inquired as to how the yard was coming. Her big concern, the dog crap harvest. She wants to get out there and start working on her many projects, but, before she does, she wants to make sure that the winters worth of dog crap is gone. You know, I think because of the mild winter and early spring.. mother nature must have taken care of her most biodegradable product on the planet and already reabsorbed all the processed Purina that had been deposited out there over the winter, because frankly after hunting hard, I couldn’t find any.
“Gone” I told her, but if she’d like to come out with me and point out any I missed I’d be grateful. She did not. Told me she’d let me know later.
I mentioned to her that I went above and beyond and weed whacked, pruned and made a very valiant attempt to mow the lawn, couldn’t do the last one of course to do to catastrophic equipment failure.
She reminded me that last summer we had invested $800 in 1/3 ownership in a rider mower which as we spoke was parked in a garage across the street and that I should go use that sometime. I was hesitant to bother other owners and last summer had mostly mowed with my push mower. Or my son did. I still don’t feel comfy barging in on people.
Mrs S went out and took a walk around the yard, inspecting my work, framing up her projects.
I was watching basketball, snug in the knowledge that I’d participated in the spring cleaning, for that would probably not be asked to much more, when in she came, by bride. Front door slammed for some reason. She walked into the den and looked at me in a way that only a married guy can understand. 28 years of marriage experience screamed “uh oh”. She stared, clearly she was trying to come up with something to tell me, “use you words” I mused.
“Com’ere” she said, and dragged me out to the yard. We walked around to the side of the house, I’d just cleaned up all the weeds over there and it looked great. Ready for her to plant her flowers.
Apparently we don’t really grow mule’s ears in Minnesota, there was a reason I’d never seen them here before.
“One word Sank” as she pointed to the remains of the weeds. “Tulips?”
The way she said it was kinda mean to be honest.
“Seriously dude. Tulips.” oooo Really shitty time for me to remember that she’d planted bulbs in a new place now that our island was gone.
“You know ‘tulip’ is Dutch for ‘weed that looks like an onion’ right?”
I may have gotten out of the rest of the yard work now, so in the big picture, it’s a win.
OOPS! But they would have frozen in the frost tonight anyway….
I often need to remind my husband, too, that “those are flowers, not weeds.” After nearly 30 years of lessons, he learning.