DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

So, I spent the entire day turning this into this. I knew I had a yard out there somewhere, buried under the weeds. It only took four hours with a “high-weed mower” to find it.

It’s not likely to rain until the Fall, and the weeds won’t grow back until next Spring, which is about when this wicked farmer tan will finally fade.

I kept the “grass” shorter last year — spent a half-day every second weekend wrestling my little suburban lawnmower up and down 30° hills and over foot-deep gopher holes. I wiped out a couple times, when my feet lost traction and I’d do a face-plant on the hill, the mower rolling backwards towards me as I fell.

By May, I’d given up; the weeds were waist-high. The mower couldn’t cope, and for that matter neither could I. I called for professional help in June, after most everything had turned brown. A landscaper sent out a crew of four. A half-day and $250 later, our yard looked great.

The drive gear on the lawnmower had expired during one of our wrestling matches, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to do any mowing this year. I was all broken up about that, you can be sure. I figured I’d just let the weeds grow until mid-summer (when everything that doesn’t get watered dies), then get them cut once by the landscaping crew. That’s apparently a pretty typical approach to lawn care around here.

The problem is, it means living with a crappy overgrown yard for the entire summer.

I finally decided to do something about it. I rented a fancy mower from the local tractor repair shop. “This thing will run through four-foot-high weeds,” exclaimed the salesperson.

Well, my yard proved to be more than a match for this mower’s admittedly prodigious power. On flat ground it might beat you in a 60-yard dash, while simultaneously chopping your grass into a fine mulch. But on my two-plus acres of weed preservation area, it managed only a brisk walk.

Otherwise, it coped admirably with the challenge, which is more than I can say for myself — four hours in the dust and sun, struggling to guide this heavy machine around trees, bushes, spigots, fences, etc., provided more workout for my shoulders than two weeks of hindu pushups. I mowed right through a couple of the shrubs, because that was easier than steering around them. In fact I took out one of the septic cleanout pipes too — an 18-inch piece of PVC sticking up from the ground. (The weeds are especially thick over the leach lines.)