My Kids, how I love them, even as they grow older as Andie and I do it pleases me that they ask for advise once in a while. Finding we share hobbies or are attempting new home projects does hit a warm pocket in this greying boys heart.
Renee’s cutting her lawn on a nice spring day makes me smile. I related a story about our new neighbor Brian cutting his lawn too. Only just a bit different than her experience.
Next door they’ve been moving in for the last two weeks assorted items from their previous residence, I assume. One item was amusing to me had to be the riding lawn mower. Brian and his 12 yr old daughter were moving it off a trailer on Monday. I would have liked to help them unload it, but they seemed to have it handled well enough and I was off on an errand . Surely I thought he wasn’t going to try to cut his grass with a 40″ deck rider. Nah.
Now to understand our city lots are small and the 120’x 40′ includes the house, garage, sidewalks etc. This lot size doesn’t leave a lot of acreage for lawn or garden so most folks have a push mower to negotiate the grass puzzle that is their lawn.
Andie and I had just finished dinner on Tuesday when I heard him start up the riding mower. Good it runs, Brian had some attachments in his trailer too so maybe he was going to till the garden. When the noise went past between the houses I was surprised, ” He’s cutting the grass with that big mower ?” I said.
We watched as he quickly chopped and scraped the front yard, destroyed half of the dogwood bush and chopped up some lilies of the valley. After running it off the curb and into the street he headed back to the garage between the houses dodging the lilac bush, air conditioner and several down spouts. Amazing was the skill of man and machine in this endeavor at not doing any real damage to his property. Beginners luck? No, the grace of God!
After the once round the yard he resorted to the push mower to rectify the previous run of the rampaging rider. Poor fellow, he had such a determined look in his eye at the outset too.
Someday we’ll laugh about it, but I’ll wait a year or two before mentioning it. Yah, frustration+ time = funny.
Comeau Publications 