Mowing The Lawn Is Overrated

My lawn mower started this morning.

I was hoping that it wouldn't, which would give me an excuse to put off mowing the yard another few days as I puzzled over the mechanical intricacies of the beast. But, alas, after three pulls the mower ended its hibernation and roared to life. So I had to mow the grass.

I don't like mowing grass. I never have and probably never will. I come from a family who enjoys work. When I was younger, they had to make me put down a book and go outside to work so I could come to appreciate yard work and physical labor. It was moments like those that made me wonder if I was adopted. Yard work is still something I loathe. Mowing grass every week during the summer just seems like an exercise in futility. It's just going to grow and need cut again. If you ask me, I'd say let it grow up all green and tall. Give the birds and the insects something to crawl around in.

I often wonder if mowing grass is just something we do to please our neighbors. I bet if you took a poll of your neighborhood, many of the fine people living around you would be happy to have tall, hearty grass and would be happy not to cut it if you were OK with that. The same goes for raking leaves. I laugh every time I see someone raking leaves into nice neat piles to be bagged when they have a yard surrounded by trees that haven't shed their leaves yet. I have an oak tree in my back yard that doesn't shed all of its leaves until the new buds in the spring push them off the tree. I don't bother touching my yard until that happens. I have a fence so my leaves are happily contained in my own back yard. When the last of them come off in the spring, I mulch them with the mower.

My back yard was given its first hair cut of the year this morning. I'd been busy all week and wasn't able to get to it in the record breaking heat we've had up until today. I went out this morning with the grudgingly accepted goal of taking care of the yard and I found a chilly, wind swept day that just wasn't comfortable at all. With Garrison Keillor's The News From Lake Wobegon podcast playing on my iPod I went to work. I finished mowing the back yard as the wind and the allergens made me all teary eyed and sneezey. The temperature was barely hovering above 50 degrees and the wind wasn't helping matters at all.

So I decided to come in. The kitchen needs a little sprucing up from the chicken enchiladas that Sarah made us last night. But that can wait too. I'm thinking a tall glass of Pepsi, a warm bath and a good book...