The Lawn

One of our summer projects was to get the house tented because the bug guy found the very evil dry wood termite. Last week we evacuated. In the process of killing the lawn the pesticide and suffocation also killed all the plant life in the surrounding area. The grass had not been cut in three weeks and I don't think I have ever weeded since I moved in almost 2 years ago.

I woke up in the wee hours of the afternoon (I still have 5 glorious days of summer left) and ran to Home Depot to get the cowboy: Round up that is. Real weed killer. The deadliest in the west. By the time I return my real cowboys were already mowing my lawn: My parents that is. The real lawn people. My mom mowed the front while I sprayed the endless amounts of weeds and my dad trimmed large bushes that were browned. Then I mowed the back, my dad fixed a latch and my mom did laundry. Then I pulled weeds, my mom raked and my dad sawed a tree in half with the neighbor. After that, I hedge cut more weeds growing out of the fence, my mom too branches to the garbage and my dad sat and had some water because it's crazy ass hot in Florida! My folks took off, but I was out there from 12:00-4:30.

Each time I would come inside to cool off. I would ask Eliot how people do this. Why do people do this? He replied that most people don't do it at high noon and the hottest part of the day in August in Florida. I was stunned? You mean people get up EARLY to do this? That is just madness. There is usually something that I don't like about yard work. It's the work part. If I had a bit more money I would not beneath hiring a gardener. I would call him Javier and gaze at him as he trimmed the roses, except the only Javier I have ever known pulled a fistful of hair out of my head when I was 6 and pushed me into an ant pile which I am allergic too. My eyes are crying themselves out of my head and my legs are swelling. Both are competing to see which can get bigger and redder when my mom comes running. After her was Javier's dad with a bottle of whiskey which my mom decides is the perfect thing to pour all over my legs. Oh and I don't have rose bushes either.

It was rewarding to look at the yard at the end of the day. It looked good. It felt good to be sweaty. It felt good to be tired from actual manual labor. There is still plenty to do. Weeds to keep pulling and new things to plant and watch grow. I will do some more tomorrow.