I hate yard work. I hate the outdoors in general. The temperature outdoors is rarely ideal. Unlike the indoors, carefully controlled by central air, the outdoors is usually either too hot or too cold. In the case of yard work, it’s usually too hot. This is exacerbated by the fact that I’m generally dressed in long sleeves and a hooded sweatshirt. Why? Because I’m allergic to EVERYTHING and exposing as little skin as possible to all the things (bugs, plants, etc.) that cause red hives seems prudent.
I know I could hire someone to do the yard work for me, but that’s more difficult than you’d expect. When I was home last fall I happened to see a landscaping truck pull up to a neighbor’s yard. I dashed outside and got their information – but had little luck getting them to actually show up to do the work, and that’s typically the case.
When I do drag myself outside to work on my yard, I’m not motivated. Usually a quick mow of my tiny yard is all I manage. I have one of those old-fashioned push mowers, no gas or electricity required – just man (or in this case, woman) power. I know most people mow their lawns in very straight parallel lines. I prefer to mow randomly, starting by creating shapes resembling crop circles. That may be why I land up with a lawn with various “tufts” of long grass. I guess there’s a reason most people favor straight parallel lines.
Grass doesn’t grow well in the front yard. So, really I just mow the back yard and kind of do a “comb over” in the front – running over the long grass and hoping it lies down and hides the bald spots.
Last weekend, I also forced myself to do some weeding. I didn’t get all the weeds pulled, but it was an improvement. I worked until my red sweaty hivey body could stand no more. I still have long grass all along the fence as I was too lazy to trim it with scissors and have yet to invest in some sort of edger.
Lawn – no, this is AFTER I mowed (not before)
Before weeding
After weeding, see, it kind of looks better… kind of
Life of the Lintee Bean 