Rehabilitative lawn care
While watching some local cable coverage of the market garden business, I had to do a compare and contrast with our local agriculture experiment.
The lawn grew this summer. A lot. Not quite enough to call in a baler, but when son #3 started estimating the number of square feet/meters/whatevers, I asked the big question: “Why?” Well, a manual lawnmower works fine if used frequently. Once a month… he was getting set to call around and see how much a commercial firm would charge to “take charge”. At least once.
I pooh-poohed the idea, so he then wondered out loud if we could go to the local hardware emporium where he could purchase a personal lawn mower – powered. I allowed that things might be a tad out of control, so why didn’t he contact a buddy who might want to earn a few dollars, at the end of a long summer. And then I waited.
Sooner, rather than later, there was a gas mower sitting in front of the house, and a request to teach the arcane skills needed to start an infernal combustion engine. One without a cord handle. Well, son, that’s why mankind invented vise grips. And, by gum, I did get the machine to turn over. And choke. And turn over again. Like the instructions on a shampoo bottle: “Rinse. Repeat.”
While I did other necessary tasks (think feeding the multitudes), the others tag teamed on the lawn. Two mowers (two styles), a weed whacker (freshly recharged with magic blue thread), a rake (just in case). The harvest is over, now let us rejoice.
I still dream of a lawn covered in periwinkle (vinca minor), like that embassy in Ottawa. So green, so even, so low labour.
