A yard of work

Finally, I had a weekend to myself to do some yard work.

Ick.

I'm not a big fan of tending to my yard; there's just too much of it to tend. And when it needs tending it is a chore in the true sense of the word. I'd rather be doing anything but doing the lawn, but there it is, in need of tending.

Others find happiness in yard work. I don't find much joy or self-satisfaction in it. I'm not interested in grass that looks like the outfield at Fenway Park or the fairways of Augusta National golf course.

There was a time when I put a lot of effort into lawns, back in the days when I lived in the suburbs north of Boston. I felt compelled to keep up with Dick across the street and Frank next door. They had exquisite lawns, so in order to maintain equal footing in our nice little subdivision I worked at exquisiteness -- I mowed, trimmed, raked, fertilized, de-thatched and aerated. I watered and weeded and worked the soil.

But that was a long time ago, a different life ago. I had a lawn for a long time, then I didn't have a lawn for a long time, having moved into an apartment that had no lawn for me to care for. It was wonderful. I didn't have to block out time during the weekend to tend a yard; I could explore more cerebral and spiritual pursuits, like putting off that novel I'd really like to write or learning Mark Knopfler's complete discography on my guitar.

Then I moved to a house with a lawn again. Before we were married and my not-yet-wife Jane was looking for a house to buy, one of the things I asked was that she not buy a house with a big lawn. And to show how much she loved me, she bought a house with a big lawn. Fortunately, she bought a house that came with a riding lawn mower. For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, 'til death by lawn do us part.

Fortunately, we live in a more rural area where I can't see my neighbors and my neighbors can't see me and, most importantly, my neighbors can't see my lawn. No more Dicks or Franks to measure up against.

So I mow ... but that's it.

I don't rake anymore, for instance. I don't care enough about the lawn to rake leaves during the fall, very unlike the suburbs where I felt the need to maintain the perfectly green carpet look until the first snowfall. I live in an area with lots of deciduous and pine trees. And there are more leaves and pine needles than I'm mentally or physically equipped to handle. This winter was particularly windy, so parts of the yard were littered with tree limbs and sticks.

I wanted to just leave them where they fell. To give the lawn that back-to-nature look. To liberate the lawn from domestication. (Everyone can join in a chorus of "Born Free, as free as the wind blows ...")

But there's the small matter of a wedding in August, and there will be lots of relatives around, so the back-to-nature look wasn't going to fly and the winter detritus needed picking up. It wasn't too bad -- I had Jane's help and there was a means to an end: the sticks we collected will make great kindling for the woodstove next winter, given that we even use the woodstove next winter.

But this lawn doesn't get fertilized or de-thatched or watered or weeded. If I can't do it from the comfort of my butt on the rider mower it won't get done.

My mowing is done with efficiency, from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible, without much finesse, as was evident the first time I mowed right over Jane's plantings of irises in the front yard. Sorry, I said, it looked like tall grass and weeds.

Now I have the time to kick back weekends and enjoy the more cerebral and spiritual pursuits that spring and summer weekends were meant for. No, not writing or playing guitar, more like admiring the outfield grass at Fenway Park or the lush green freeways of Augusta National on TV.