Reality Amuck™

I always enjoy early Spring, at least when it comes to yard work. The weather is still relatively cool and every thing starts growing again. Don't get me wrong, Autumn is still by far my favorite season of the year. I love the crisp chill in the evening air, the color of the leaves and most of all, being able to wear jackets and sweaters to help hide my spare tire.

This year as we entered Spring and the need for lawn work to began to rear its head I realized that our old faithful mower had seen better days. It made it through the first mowing in time for the twins' birthday party but halfway through the second mowing the wheels literally fell off the mower due to rust. We picked up our new mower at the local Depot of Homes and I rediscovered the joy of yard work.

Trust me, in a few months my Twitter feed and this blog will fill with posts regard how much I can't stand yard work but that's a summer deal. This new machine is my first bagging mower and I'm really liking it. Last Fall we completely neglected to rake any leaves. For the most part, luck of the wind had sent them flying into Somewhere-else Land, at least in the areas that he Home Owners Mafioso routinely check, and the rest were just left blown behind sheds and in the corners of the yard. I used the mower to bag the leaves and it was so much easier than raking them.  Granted I did have to re-rake them into a thin layer across the yard but the mower made bagging them a lot easier than trying to do it by hand.

Due to my neglect of the yard last year I noticed that this year we have a new problem. One of the few yard related tasks I achieved last year was the removal of several of the large patches of crabgrass. I had sprayed it several times over the summer but failed to notice that not only had it died, but it had pretty much disappeared over the winter. Unfortunately over the winter my nemesis arrived; chickweed.

This annoying little, shallow-rooted, matted, crap weed loves the cooler months but dies off once the warmer weather arrives. So now I'm left with brown patches of dead or dying chickweed. My attempts at removal so far have consisted of me raking the dead remnants up and using the mower to bag them or, in a fit of frustration, trying to pull as much of it out of the ground with my bare hands as I can. As it dries up and dies I'm now left with big dead areas of dirt. I need to find a grass that will quickly grow back in these areas and as we are well into Spring, I need to find it fast.

I'm not sure what's gotten into me with enjoying working in the yard again. When I'm mowing it's almost like I go into a Zen state. I get lost in thought as I push the mower in ever diminishing  squares around the yard. Our backyard is rather large and I can spend two or three hours mowing. When I finish my body is tired but mentally I'm more refreshed than if I'd spent a day in a spa being pampered.

After reading this you may be thinking, "Uh, that's nice but who cares?" and that's okay. I just didn't want to clog up my Tweet-Stream with all of this lawn talk. Enjoy your weekend.