Mowin' the lawn, mowin' the lawn
Behold the glory that is my new lawnmower! Yes, that’s right - it’s a lawnmower. Not a Fischer-Price toy from the neighbor’s yard (although it certainly looks like one). All that’s missing is the little plastic guy with the cylindrical head perched on top of the mower somewhere, clutching a fake steering wheel. It doesn’t even run on gas – it’s electric!
Oh lord, now I’ve got that stupid song in my head…
Anyways, the beauty of it is that the mower will be “VLM” – very low maintenance. My yard's size roughly corresponds with that of a book of 20 postage stamps, so there was no need to go out and over-compensate and buy a John Deere tractor/mower/post-hole digger.
As much as I’m looking forward to being done mowing the lawn in about 10 minutes, half of which time will be spent coiling up the long extension cord, there is one other aspect of my yard that is a little daunting: flowerbeds. Not that they’re a labor of Hercules or anything, and the nice thing is they are already present, fully-mulched. But I certainly do not have a green thumb for flowers or gardens so I’m hoping that my yard doesn't become the neighborhood eyesore. I’m representing the
I see some flowers already coming up and I also see those little white sign thingies sticking out of the mulch where other things are supposed to bloom. There is also a nice-looking honeysuckle plant growing along the first part of my fence, but it’s already an uneasily large size. As in, it’s on the borderline going from looking pleasingly quaint to looking like a white-flowered monster devouring the fence between me and my neighbor’s driveway.
I know there is probably some simple technique to pruning it back, but all I can remember is how badly I mangled a pretty rosebush my Mom had growing alongside this low stone wall we had in our yard when I was a kid. In all fairness, I never did try to prune this rosebush properly. I more or less destroyed its aesthetics by just pushing the lawnmower over its outermost parts. You can probably imagine the outcome. This is why I stick to working on animals and not plants!
Did I mention I took two botany classes in undergrad? You can see that I was in it just for the field trips.
But, that’s enough stressing over the lawn for now. I’m sure I’ll do fine. I’m not too proud to ask a lot of questions and I do really want to learn how to keep a proper flowerbed and all that. If it all goes to hell, I’ll just buy some obnoxiously large American flags, not to mention a few sports team flags, and plant them in all the bare patches of my flowerbeds. If I’m going to be an eyesore, I’m going all the way!
Spent the day shopping around for furnishings for the flat, and although it’ll be a while before I can afford living room furniture, beds, dressers, etc., I did get a fridge today. Got a good deal on it from a co-worker, so now I have a place to keep ice cold Coke, which will come in handy after all that exhausting yard work.
Speaking of which, what’s the over/under on how long it will take me to actually mow over the power cord and electrocute myself?
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