The Whirring Blades Satisfaction.

For the past couple of years, Earl and I have had a lawn service doing the mowing and the landscaping around The Manor. The reason for this is two-fold: 1. we are very busy people with our work lives and 2. I’m lazy.

Now I enjoy spending time outdoors but I have remarked in the past that I would rather push the snowblower up and down the driveway in lieu of driving the lawn mower around in circles so when given the choice of paying a service for either, we opted for lawn care. Earl made a call in the mid part of last week to see if they were available to take care of our lawn again this season and they answered in the affirmative.

As of Saturday the lawn service had not come to take care of the lawn and it was looking wicked shabby. Now, I’m not one that has to have a perfectly manicured lawn, but having a presentable lawn is important to me so it started bugging me a little bit when Tom (the cat) went out into the back lawn and all we could see was the tip of his tail. Luckily, his tendency to use his tail as a compass gave us the luxury to know which direction he was headed. I thought I saw the tips of his ears for a moment, but that was just wishful thinking. When he finally made his way back to the back patio, he gave me a dirty look.

I knew it was time to do something about the lawn.

I hauled the riding mower into the garage so I could get it going and I felt a certain amount of satisfaction when I could get the mower to make noises. It is on the battery charger as we speak and I am hopeful that tonight or tomorrow the lawn mower will be fully functional.

I looked around the garage for the push mower, figuring I could at least get some of the lawn under control using that but I was reminded that we ditched that wretched piece of machinery a few years ago. (I swear the wheels were from a shopping cart because they all wanted to go in a different direction. We were the only folks on the block that had a lawn with zig-zagging stripes.)

Earl and Jamie went out and bought us a new mower, which was assembled and put to good use. I felt great satisfaction as I pushed the mower all around the house, taming the lawn in the process. I was quite pleased with myself and it felt good to be doing something other than staring at a computer screen.

This morning Earl notified me via email that the lawn service was out finishing up what I hadn’t tackled yet with my new found piece of machinery.

I have to admit, my first reaction was “bummer”.

Now the lawn service was doing what we asked them to do, but we have decided that they’re only going to do it this month and then we are going to tell them that their services are no longer required. We want to make sure that the riding mower is actually going to start up as planned and then I will take on the taming of the lawn myself. It’s something that I really want to do. I have decided that this is an indicator that I am starting to approach middle age and that in a few years time I will probably be one of those annoying neighbors that mow three times a week, each time at 6 a.m.

It’s good to have something to look forward to.