Weedeaters come to this place to die, I have decided. They are the bane of my existence. Because there is so much rock, the ground is always heaving and the voles root under the ground causing all these ruts in the grass is why I have to use them instead of a traditional mower. I use the mower mostly around the house. Today was not a mower day.
Our leeching field is quite large and has to be mowed at least a couple times each summer. I try and catch it early on and just mow the shit out of it. The worst problem is these damn wild blackberry bushes. They grow everywhere and are thorny and ugly. If I don’t wear the proper attire - gloves, long sleeve shirts, jeans, protective eyewear and good shoes - I walk away bloody. We have tried for years to find a local kid who wants to make money who would come in and mow for us a couple times for the summer. No kids for miles. Wait, there are kids but the annoying kind who don’t like to mow. We pay handsomely. However, the larger landscapers want contracts and charge a fortune. We only need it a couple times a summer so it falls into my lap. I try and do it early in the summer to kill all the blackberry bushes and then later in the summer when the Golden Rod and Milkweed are coming up.
Our other issue is that we live far enough away from any gas station to just make it incredibly inconvenient when we are out of gas for outdoor tools. I have learned my lesson - there is nothing more frustrating when you realize you are out of gas and have to get in a car and drive 30 minutes to load up on gas to bring back to the house. Plus, I don’t like to store a lot of gas especially on hot days in a hot shed. That is the reason we have electric weedeaters. They have to be light enough to hold and use for long periods of time. I use them like a big scythe when I am working across the leeching field. It can take me hours and days to do the leeching field. I break it up into increments of time early or late in the day so it’s not too hot. I load up the three weedeaters with full spools so I don’t have to start and stop as often to rethread them. If I have to stop and rethread a spool - it breaks my momentum and I want a drink. This morning, the weather was perfect and after a couple cups of coffee - I was ready to go. I ran the electric cord down to the field, lay out the weedeaters and gunned the motor - “Goodbye Suckers!” Two hours later, I have only a third of the leeching field completed. I am covered in grass and bugs and three spool-less weed eaters lying on the ground exhausted.
It is at that moment, that I have an epiphany. I wish I had a child. Not a child, a teenager. A healthy teenager with a good work ethic equipped with their own power tools. Now I get it, that is why people have children - to do yard work. Duh? God knows, I did enough yard work for my Dad. If I could adopt a teenager with power tools that is what I would do. At least for the summer. No, maybe I could use them for winter for shoveling snow too? A foster teenager? I put the weedeaters and electric cords away for another day. It’s 11 am and time for a cocktail.
No comments:
Post a Comment