I was so pleased to see last week's rain come through, turning the dustbowl that my yard and garden had become back into somewhat airable soil.

The rain did more than just that. It helped return the flows of streams and rivers to normal levels, it helped wash my vehicles and the dust off of nearly everything, it helped reinvigorate the growth of my garden plants and it also made the grass start growing again in my yard.

I hadn't mowed the grass in some three weeks prior to the rain and it really wasn't much of a problem. The weeds were only about ankle high in most places, with the occasional rat tail here and there. My yard somehow became a topic of conversation when a friend came by for a quick visit and noticed the high weeds that needed to be knocked down around the fence. After a joke or two on my part and his, he looked at the rest of the yard and asked, "Why don't you put some weed and feed on your yard and some lime and thicken up that grass? Your yard has almost as many weeds as grass."

"Well," I stated, "I really don't want the grass to be any thicker and if I killed all the weeds, I don't think there would be anything left. Besides, weeds are green, too."

If it weren't for the weeds, I'm not sure anything in the garden would have survived this drought. They provided shade and helped hold moisture in the soil. At least that's my story since I've let the weeds get ahead of me yet again. It's more of a habit than I'd like to admit this time of year.

While my friend who was talking with me does have a very nice yard, with golfcourse-like grass and neatly groomed trees, he also has to mow once a week or even more often in rainy times.

I actually enjoy hunting wild strawberries on the bank outside the house and dandelions are just pretty little flowers, in my opinion. Besides, the kids really like to blow those little seedheads and watch future dandelions float through the air. Clover is the other green plant that fills much of my lawn area. Clover is a honey crop for my bees, so I'm happy to see both white and purple clover varieties growing here and there.

Sometimes I find those little purple flowers that I only know as Indian paintbrushes and even those purple plants that people sometimes grow on purpose in their flower beds.

Variety is the spice of life, I've been told, so why wouldn't it be the same in the yard?

I admit that the lush grass at my friend's house looks very appealing for the bare feet. But at my house, the gravel pretty much goes to the front door, so I'd have to ‘ouch' and ‘ooh' my way over the driveway on my tender feet before even getting that opportunity. There aren't many people over the age of 12 that can run barefooted over a gravel driveway. I'm not sure if it's because we constantly wear shoes or because we constantly get bigger and heavier, but either way, gravel hurts.

As we surveyed my ‘landscaping,' I pointed out some of the recent plantings around the yard, including a row of north privet hedge that was supposed to grow at a phenomenol rate. I planted them two years ago and they still aren't much more than knee high-more victims of drought and late freezes.

"That's more like a field than a yard," my friend aptly pointed out as he surveyed the scene. I would have argued if I wasn't standing beside a waist-high poke plant that had somehow evaded my attention beside the building. Besides, sometimes the truth is just the truth.

Poke makes a nice salad, I thought, but usually it has to be picked when it's a lot smaller than waist-high.

"So long as the soil isn't washing away, it's all good with me," I said. I actually would consider spraying the whole mess with herbacide if not for the health concerns and the liklihood of erosion.

I'd even come up with a mental idea for a mowing machine that would feature a herbacide sprayer that would give measured doses to slow the growth of the grass as you mow. Think of it as anti-fertilizer for those who hate to mow.

I decided to put my invention on hold after two years of drought pretty much had the same effect around here.

I'm sure there's someone out there who can understand where I'm coming from.

Mowing is like any repetitive task for me-it simply takes away time for more interesting pursuits. Would you rather mow an acre or hike through the mountains? Trim weeds on a bank or sit on a creek bank? You get the picture.

I have better things to do than keeping up with the Joneses and their excellent and manicured lawn. Besides, I don't even know where the Joneses live and even if I did, they've never invited me over to walk barefoot on their grass.

Since I haven't put much time into my yard, I recently hit a rock and bent one of my mower blades, since one side was cutting shorter than the other. It added a nice effect as I mowed Saturday, so I decided not to fix it right away.

All kidding aside, I'm thankful that I have a riding mower. I used to mow about an acre on a hillside with a pushmower. Now that will truly make you hate mowing, but at least I'd be getting some exercise. My elderly neighbor still mows her own grass with a pushmower. I'm not sure I could do that and I'm half her age. Maybe that's why she's so healthy.

I always got up early to get started before the sun got too hot when I was pushmowing and I seldom let the work get too far behind, lest I end up raising the front wheels off the ground and forcing the mower through the weeds.

With a riding mower, you can pretty much be as lazy as you care to be and still plow over most heights of grass. The weed trimmer will take down the big stuff just as well as the small, too, so there's a good excuse for putting that little chore off another day or three.

Maybe the next place I'll need to mow is my garden, where the potatoes are living in a weedy jungle and only the corn rises untouched over the huddled masses of what once was vegetable paradise. Given that fact and since I like tilling better than mowing, maybe I should just plant the yard in corn next year.
 

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