While ALMOST Mowing the Lawn

Yesterday evening marked the 6th day in a heat wave that we have been having in the Swamps of Jersey. I believe the high was 97 degrees Fahrenheit. I would give you the Celsius measurement but I am at once both too ignorant to know it off the top of my head and too lazy to look it up on a convenient web site.

Blame it on the heat.

Oh but its out there. Growing. Why is that? Why does the grass continue to grow in this heat? Shouldn’t it just want to lay as dormant as I want to? No – grass is a real ‘go getter’. You would think that it would just burn. Wouldn’t that be great?! Oh yeah. I’d love the yard to be dead; brown and dead – dust bowl dead. Yeah, that would be nice.

Man, it’s hot.

I had such high hopes for the ivy (see: http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2008/06/while-mowing-lawn.html). The plan was simple enough; plant ivy and kill grass. The ivy would spread like a plague covering the tenacious lawn with a lush greenness that would never need to be mowed! That’s a brilliant plan. Oh yes, and the plan would have worked too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!

No that’s not right the meddling kids had nothing to do with this one.

“When are you going to come and pick up the bucket of ivy?” my friend from work asked. “It’s starting to stink.”

“Stink?” I asked.

“Yes.” She said. “All you’ll have to do is wash it with bleach.”

“Bleach?”

“Yes. It’s right to the left after you open the gate.

“Right.” I said. “I’ll pick it up.”

And true to my word I did just that. The bucket was exactly where she said it would be and so was the smell. No, that does not do it justice, Gentle Reader. Please forgive me – allow me to rephrase the latter part of that sentence. Here we go…

SO WAS THE SMELL!

Yeah, that’s better. The five-gallon bucket reeked of dead horse intestine stewing in its own juices for about two weeks in the hot sun. I could detect horse feces somehow in the mix. Vultures would have been circling save for the fact that this was supposed to be plant life. No – this really smelled of decaying flesh. The scent of death was about it. It was some abomination of nature warping both animal and plant DNA together in some macabre poached brew plucked from some level of Hell where Satan puts his own black skid marked stained undies. Brutal.

“Bleach!” I said out loud to no one but myself. My friend and her husband were not home so I was officially talking to myself. The simple fact was that there was not enough bleach in my pantry to save what was left of the ‘ivy’. I began to hatch a plan. I couldn’t leave it here. She (my friend) had been kind enough to put the abomination in the bucket for me in the first place and she had made a request for me to pick it up from her residence – a job that I had agreed to do. There was no way that I could take it all the way to my place. I had to find a home for it… nearby. And that’s exactly what I did. I dumped out a little of the concoction so that it wouldn’t spill in the bed of my small SUV.

…Oh the stench…

I put the bucket in my trunk and drove to the woods where I introduced ‘ivy’ to the local environment. I didn’t litter – that would have been wrong. Instead I stimulated the ecosphere and reforested a bare patch in the forest.

Hideous.

I thanked my friend for her troubles, deodorized my truck and silently wished that the initial plan had come to fruition. Ah, “the best laid plans of mice and men”; this was a good one too. Now instead of ivy I’ve got a lawn full of tall, hot grass that needs mowing. Oh well, what’s a boy to do?

Maybe I’ll ask my friend for another bucket sans the horse intestine. Hey (or hay), it could work.

While Mowing the Lawn

I don’t know if you have a lawn or not Gentle Reader but I happen to have one. I don’t like it. Oh sure, it’s nice once it’s mowed but as sure as the tides, it just keeps growing; which means I just keep mowing. It is an endless cycle.

I think that I’d prefer ivy. You don’t have to mow ivy. I haven’t told Mother Hen this yet but a friend of mine from work has scored me a bucket full. She tells me that all I have to do is pick it up, plant it and water it.

“Water it?” I asked.

“Yeah, water it. It’s a plant – it needs water at least when it’s starting out.”

“…Right.” It’s gardening tips such as this that continue to elude me. Well, until I pick up the stuff I’m mowing. Tonight I had several things swishing around my neuro-passageways and, for your reading pleasure (and so I can put my wacky thoughts down somewhere) I’m putting them right here in this blog. …Well, not all of them, my mind can go to some pretty strange and (at least for yours truly) wonderful places. What can I say; some things are better left unsaid – it’ll let you still maintain the idea that I have a modicum of sanity and it will let me preserve a modicum of decorum.

Since that is the case, here are my censored thoughts that I had while mowing the lawn.

1. I hate grass. There really seems to be no reason for the stuff. I began to make plans (once again) to take (since ‘steal’ is such a bad word) one of those signs on Route 55 (a “major” road way here in the Swamps of Jersey) that reads, “Weeping Love Grass: Do Not Mow”. Now I don’t know what that person was paid for coming up with such a statement – such an inspired thought, but clearly, they are not being paid enough. In one fell swoop it is now OK to let the grass grow, the taxpayers are happy (since they don’t have to shell out the salary, equipment fees and gas cost for cutting the grass), and it pleases the environmentalists. Pure genius.

2. Mother Hen – for amazing reasons that I will not go into here.

3. My brood, Bad Wolf, Chicken Beta and Chicken Little. I began thinking of their futures and how much I would like to be around to be the COOL Grandfather and/or Pop Pop. Not to sound boastful or not humble or proud – trust me, I will be the COOL Grandfather and/or Pop Pop; come to think of it Mother Hen will be the COOL Grandmother and/or Mom Mom. What can I say? It’s what we do. This line of thinking made me consider the future. Bad Wolf if now 15. She’s a great kid and I’m wicked proud of her. For some reason I started comparing our ages. I was 21 when I got married. That is 6 years from now. Gentle Reader let me just say this made me stop pushing the dreaded lawn mower and look towards my house. Six years difference. Using my x-ray vision I could see that my children were all safe and happy and poking around on the internet and playing the Nintendo Wii but still… SIX YEARS until she (my oldest) is 21 – the same age I was when I got married to Mother Hen. Wow. Who are in my mind prospective suitors? Hmm… There was one boy who offered to donate blood to her a few years ago for her spinal surgery. Yeah, he’s a keeper. Then there was that one boy who she has a mutual love of videogames with… I don’t know. I do know what I tell my daughters when it comes to seeking and/or identifying your partner in life; I tell them, “One, they’ve got to love the Lord; and Two, they’ve got to love YOU”. That’s it. Nothing more. I don’t care about any of the other trappings. I also follow it up with saying to them, “Enjoy each other's company for a couple of years after you are married. But, when the time is right, give us many grandbabies.” Thank you very much.

4. Man, I hate grass.

5. I was at a funeral for a girl that I would have graduated with but she moved away in our junior year and was hit by a drunk driver while waiting at an intersection. I think of her from time to time. I remember her father saying to me at her funeral, “You were special to her… you were special.” Dear God, I can only imagine that pain – that loss. She was special too. I don’t know why she slipped into my thoughts but she did.

6. Samurai swords. Perhaps a Samurai sword would aid me with yard work? There are a couple of limbs and stickers that could use a mighty flash of cold steel. The rebellious hedges need to be brought back into line and walking the path of the Samurai while working on my lawn may just be what the doctor ordered.

7. I’m going to have to invest in some more gas soon. Five bucks just doesn’t buy the same amount of juice as it used to.

8. “The Incredible Hulk”. The film comes out tomorrow and I’m more jazzed then I thought I would be. Ang Lee’s “The Hulk” was hideous. There is more chemistry in a glass of lemon aid then there was between the lead actors; the story was choppy and Lee had absolutely no idea who the character was or any respect for the forty plus years of comic history that, as a steward, was placed into his hands. There is no excuse for that. So why am I interested? This is the second film that MARVEL is in complete control of the project. The first was “Iron Man” and that has become one of the finest superhero movies ever made. Add the idea that Robert Downey Jr. has a cameo as Tony Stark and Marvel has made me make me want to hand over the money in my wallet once more. I have a sneaky feeling that they are girding up for an absolutely amazing “Ultimates” (Avengers movie). Take it from me, True Believers – this is one geek who will be there opening night. Make Mine Marvel!

9. The ivy will be an improvement in the front. I’m going to start at the mailbox and see what happens from there. It will still be green AND it should kill the grass! Yeah BAY BEE!

10. Man, for a small lawn this thing takes a long time to mow.

And that was it; I was done for another week. So there you have it, a peek into my psyche while I mow. Still all that remains is the grass; I have no illusions though… I know that it will be back. For as much as I love spring and summer I really don’t like cutting the grass. Oh well, what’s a boy to do?

Plant some ivy I guess.