Mowing the yard takes a lot of time at our house. We have about two acres of land and it can take about 6 hours to mow it really well. We usually just mow one area at a time. We both can't mow at the same time since we have two little hooligans to keep an eye on. Those hooligans can get into all sorts of trouble when outside.
Just a few days ago, Chad was cleaning out the pool while the girls were outside in their playhouse. There are baby birds living in the playhouse in a cup on a shelf. Zoe decided to climb up and get the cup to show Gigi the babies. Well, a baby jumped out of the cup (there are 6 birds in the cup) and since mom and dad weren't there to keep an eye on the situation, our dog Lola chomped the baby bird and killed it. Nice.
So, as you can see, mowing takes a long time. I don't mind mowing. It gets me out of the house. I put my cowboy hat on, plug in my iPhone and turn on my Pandora app to the Steve Earle station. I can mow and hang with Johnny Cash, Steve, Townes and John Prine and think for a while. I don't often get a chance to think while in the house with the hooligans.
Mowing can be challenging, though. I can't totally take my mind off of the task at hand. Things mysteriously can emerge from our yard and we always have to be on the lookout for what's ahead on our mowing path. That can get even trickier the longer the grass gets and you can't see what's on said path. I have run over turtles, snakes, steel bars, rocks, deer bones, tree stumps, canine and kid toys. We go through a few mower blades every season.
Right now it's time for the walnuts to start falling off of our trees. We have A LOT of walnut trees. We also have the fattest squirrels around. Two walnut trees are about 100 years old. The branches get heavy from the walnuts and hang down right in the path of mowing and you have to dodge them, slowly moving the mighty branches out of your way to stay on track. The sound the mower makes running over the walnuts can be disturbing. There's a great shredding sound and I never know if I'm running over something other than walnuts.
All of that noise can take away from my private time with Steve and Johnny.
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