Lots Mow To Do 'Round Here

I'm not the lawn mowing type. I just don't like it and I have a recently discovered severe grass allergy. But this past Friday night, I made an exception. One section of our yard, the steepest hill where lawn tractors fear to tread, was seriously out of control. Grass like long hair flowing downhill... Locusts popping up everywhere. Weeds! Prickers! It was absolutely untamed.

Mike taught me how to run the push mower... yelled at me for wearing flip flops.... and I was off and mowing. Turns out it's pretty difficult to mow such a steep grade. Mike ended up having to help me because I was in serious danger of falling down the hill with the dang mower. I just couldn't cut it. (Ha ha, lawnmower humor.) But with the two of us, we mowed the most of it.

Then, I pulled out all the weeds and locust sprouts. Mike was inspired to teach me how to run the small chainsaw, since I'd done so well with the lawn mower. I successfully cut down one small locust that was choking out a maple. Although as soon as it came down, huge spiders started jumping out of the tree like rats off a sinking ship. It was terrible. I hate spiders. So I guess I won't be quitting my day job for a landscaping life anytime soon.

After the weeding, we still have a little more mowing to do, but by this time, the sun had set. No use trying to mow in the dark. At the last moment, Mike got out the weed whacker and cut the grass on the very edge of the hill, finishing at least that half of it. And we need a retaining wall there pretty badly, I thought. But these things must wait.

Saturday afternoon, I spread some of our leftover gravel in the "machine parking area" at the back of on the yard. There wasn't enough gravel left to even cover half of the area properly, but at least my little bit of shoveling and raking took down the few small piles hanging out in the far corner. One of Mike's clients is giving him a free wooden playset on Wednesday, so I knew I had to at least attempt to tidy up back there. And yes, I just said a free wood playset. A big one with a slide, swings, and a fort on top. I'm so psyched about that. Hopefully Mike will be able to actually move his trailer and pick it up on Wednesday. That would make my week right there.

I should have been painting the porch ceiling Saturday afternoon, but I discovered that we're out of fuzzy rollers. Ok, they're probably like $1. But it was also about 85 freakin degrees out and I didn't really feel like taking off all the patio furniture, lugging out the ladder, and so on and so forth with the drop cloth and yadda yah. Maybe the thing to do is to paint in the evenings when it's cooler. I'll just have to get myself a fuzzy roller and half a glass of motivation later on this week.