Not so bad is not so bad

I mowed the weeds yesterday.

There isn’t much actual grass anymore.

Well, that’s a misstatement.

There isn’t ANY grass anymore.

Apartment dwellers don’t have to deal with lawn maintenance. If you live in a home and have grass, you do.

If you have pets you sacrifice nice-looking lawns in favor of letting them tear up the yard.

It’s what we do as pet owners.

It’s hard to have both pets and a nice lawn but we’re gonna try again in the fall if only to avoid the mud bowl on a daily basis once the cold weather gets here.

Essentially, our lawnmower is reduced to being a wide-bodied weed whacker and that’s alright.

The weeds look a little like grass once they’re cut down enough.

After the weeds are thoroughly mowed I take the actual weed whacker and whack the weeds that live along the edge of the sidewalk and where the weeds substituting as lawn begin to grow.

Then I whack the edge of an ivy garden that can be overrun pretty quickly by weeds as well.

I sometimes think what it would look like if everything weeds substituting as the lawn is allowed to grow wild for several weeks. Even without rain, I imagine it’d get to looking like a scene from Walking Dead–just without the walking dead, only weeds.

We get spoiled by the look of green lawns when we watch major league baseball games. The grounds crew keep the field and its blades of grass looking just splendidly.

But, I don’t have a grounds crew. I only have me. And the dogs and my better half.

Weeds that are mowed neatly and edging weeds that are whacked in a finely-tuned manner can look not so bad. I hesitate to say pretty well as that would not be quite as accurate. When something looks not so bad, it looks, well, not so bad.

So, that is what I go for each week I undertake the duties of the grounds crew at our humble abode.

The most fun part of the whole deal is the leaf blower.

Before I get to it, though, I’d just like to recommend anyone who has to mow lawns, whack weeds and blow leaves wear ear protection, as I think my hearing, which while not always the best in the past has taken a bit of a hit since this summer I have not used earplugs.

Earplugs make me feel like I’m underwater. A stingray could sneak up on me underwater. While manicuring the grounds, one of my dogs could sneak up on me and I would not want them to be hurt by any of my doings. I do usually have them penned in the house (that is the dog door is closed and they are consequently confined to the house interior) when lawning out. Yes, lawning is now a word and you saw it here first.

While I’ve gotten off on a tangent I’ve now finally come to the best part of groundskeeping–the leaf blower.

It’s particularly thrilling for me now, too, as I finally arrived at the appropriate fuel mixture whereby the blower runs like a champ. This way the blowees can be properly addressed. And yes, blowees is now a word, too, that you saw here first and means the things a blower blows.

Dark plumes of smoke and low RPMs bad.

No smoke and smooth blowing good.

While a lot of people dislike the groundskeeping chores I like them. Most of the reason is that the weeds really look not so bad at the end of the job.

The blower does seal the deal, though, as I can get all the debris out of the way and off on a journey of its own.

Speaking of journeys, it’ll soon be time for kickoff and a trip in front of the television where I can occasionally look out and admire the not so bad of a job I once again did on the weeds, I mean, lawn.

Bob’s takeaway: wear ear protection so as to reduce the number of times you say, “Excuse me?” when you don’t hear something.

Shoutout to Alan Carper and his suggestion to write a piece on “Pearl” — a Linux distribution.

Maybe I should interview you? I’ll be reaching out.

Happy Sunday!