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So, the sun is shining on Sunday. Very pastoral.

I’ve slumbered well into the day. I worked Saturday night, a usual shift at a sleep lab that started with a headache more vibrant then Chernobyl on methane emissions day. I, you know, needed a nap.

I woke blissfully headache free and realized that while Spring had been around to green the grass for nearly three weeks now, my lawnmower had yet to make a round.

My front yard has become what I affectionately call Ozark turf. It’s got rocks and stems, a few leaves and weeds. Some call it rustic, I call it hard on the feet. The rocks come in on a very natural erosion process where my drive concrete schluffs off rocks to the yard as if rocky trails to your home was all the rage this winter. When it snows, I have to choose between the SUV’s compacting the snow to ice or shovel some snow and a ton of rock into the yard so I don’t slide into the garage. (not again, I saw this happen to my neighbor, so I’ve since become a bit stricken about snowy drives).

I get my lawn mower out. I haven’t changed the oil in this thing since before the Starr report. God bless Briggs and Straton. I was out of gas, so I fed the thing two coca colas and a half bag of coffee and the thing kicked over first pull. Spring is great.

The true pride in owning Ozark turf is the incredulous feeling you have of self embarrassment from trying to mow the 16 or 17 grass stems that decided to stand up that day. The dust plumes rivaled the trails left by Boss Hog eating the dust from the General Lee. A Hamm’s Beer in hand and the redneck visage would be complete. I would have worn a wife-beater to complete my transformation, but I did have a side yard.

The side yard is lush and approximately two and a half feet tall at this point. The Briggs eats it alive.

I enter the backyard. My two loving Malamutes, Naboon and Deimos, have granted me a Christmas present, no yard to mow in back. Well, to be sure, about half the yard is dead, the rest has learned to live off shit. Tons of shit. These dogs rival a sumo-wrestler in Texas at a chili-fest. That is, they produce.

The grass in that part of the yard can actually grab your ankles and push you over.

The Briggs cowered. I pushed, but it reeled back in a whimper. Four times my Briggs tried to die on me, eating only 2 inches in to the 3 foot high jungle wall of lush green grass/bamboo. My neighbor comes out, looking very Plato, and states “your grass is too tall.”

He’s my nice neighbor, but his observations get dubious at times. He loves to laugh at my young ass failing miserably about a million things. It’s okay, my back works and I don’t have any kids feeding me their debt. I figure, if I provide him some humor, maybe I’m less likely to go to hell.

The other neighbors are not so unlike Kerry and I, except they have a child and they keep walled in just about as much as we do. Back to the grass.

Luckily, my lawn mowing day wasn’t dependent on just one machine. I have a gas powered weed eater, and it really is an extension from the eyebrow of Zeus.

I turn the mighty grass death wand on, pull the start and roaring to lif…. the spool of line comes ever flowing from the reel and manages, with great talent and speed, to rat nest around the beasts neck.

Shit.

I figure it out easy enough, but I remember then I dropped this project as winter approached. I got in a hurry and just packed up the garage for winter one day, telling myself I needed to remember to finish up on the weed eater. Kicking your own ass feels great.

For this measly patch of grass, it took one swipe of the wanded beast and even then my mower coughed and gasped as I drug it like a stubborn child over the minefield of dead feces strewn everywhere. Lovely. I was ready for steak.

All this is done, and feeling somewhat accomplished, I went to hose down these two yard machines.

A flick of the wrist and a pee stream of water comes forth from the hose all whilst a water main’s worth comes from underneath the house.

My only saving grace, it stop when I turned the nozzle back off. Now I have a broken house, dirty lawn equipment which is basically used for a 5′x5′ patch of super green and Ozark turf I hate mowing, and a broken house.

Spring, it really refreshes your view on the world.