The Difficulty of Mowing the Lawn

April 19, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:   Work late morning, early afternoon.  When I get home, I have to mow the lawn.  I don’t mind mowing the lawn, except for making the time to do it.  But it is a hard lawn to mow because of all the obstacles in the yard or along the perimeter of the lawn.  These include blackberry canes, multiflora briars, and other prickly weeds that jut into the yard, low hanging branches from the lilac bushes and other trees, the garden hose that Moi never wraps up, dead branches from the birch and willow trees, a screen door, tomato cages, a wash basin, and a plastic waste can filled with an old swimming pool liner along the garden, Blue’s grave and the mounds of dirt around it that Moi never shoveled back on the grave, a chimney that fell off the summer house, a big glass jug sitting in the weeds near the chimney, the various cat graves around a spruce tree in the front yard, a bathtub by the lilac bushes, a broken barbecue grill pushed back into the bushes, a stove pipe from a wood stove that Moi picked up one day and just lets sit under the spruce tree in the back yard with a bunch of other junk left there over the years, the swimming pool and the swimming pool filter and the wiki light posts that are lying on the ground around the pool, the frame of a wooden swing set that Moi sometimes uses to hang a deer hide on, a soccer ball and another old pool liner lying under the maple tree, two other wood frames for hanging deer hides, one propped against the corn crib and the other against a bus stop that my father had made for the kids when they were small and had to wait for the bus at the end of our long lane and which we now use as a make-shift lawn shed filled with items that we seldom or never use and that paper wasps like to build nests in, an old wooden canopied swing that’s hanging by rusty chains and covered during the summer with Virginia creeper, a cement block-lined fire pit in the middle of the back yard, the lawn furniture that hasn’t been used since the Boy’s parties with his college friends (the furniture including two metal chairs without cushions, the frame for a chaise lounge that Jazz got me for my birthday, a rickety picnic table, a wooden garden table with movable benches that are anywhere in the yard but next to the table, and a park bench with cement sides that it takes six people to move), a tipped-over metal cooler with legs, a couple recycling containers filled with beer and soda bottles from the Boy’s parties that never got recycled, various sticks that Mway has left lying around the yard which usually get chewed up by the mower blade but whose splinters are sometimes spit up into the air in front of me, some broken glass and a snow board by the old shed near the driveway, and a toy truck left in the weeds near a mound of dirt the kids used to play on when they little….When I get done with the lawn, I sit on the sofa in the living room for a minute, while Mway paces around the kitchen and every now and then sticks her head in the living room.  I take her out about 4:45.  Outside I had noticed before mowing that some one had found the fetching stick that I was fond of and had thrown it on the sidewalk, but I take one of Mway’s smaller sticks for our fetch today

State of the Path:  I don’t see any new flowers that have come up, although there are a lot of plants that have been coming up that I have not yet made mention of, mainly because I don’t know what they are.  One that I think Moi might know the name of is a pretty ground plant that’s coming up a lot around her garden pond – I’ll have to ask her if she knows what this is.  The hedge garlic is becoming more prevalent, the wild mustard growing higher, and I notice leaves coming up on the raspberry runners by the old orchard and shoots of blackberry runners coming up among the dried up old canes and in the path, which I try to trample on as much as I can to keep them from becoming impediments in the path.

State of the Creek:  Minnows in the pools.  The water going into bug land through the maples has dried up, but bug land is still soggy in the spots it usually is, but not so much that I get water in my boots.  My feet have remained dry for quite a few days now on my walks.

The Fetch:  Mway fetches the small stick a good number of times.  I don’t bother keeping count.