"I fought the lawn and the lawn won."

We're not even into summer yet, and my yard is already kicking my butt. That's not a good sign.

I was so busy when the weeds -- er, grass started growing that I just didn't have time to do anything about it. Then the rains came, and the usual growth rate tripled. I finally have some time to work on it -- just not enough. I have mowed. Trimmed. Raked. Hauled. Dragged. And it still looks like we're living in the middle of a jungle. An ugly jungle.

I would love to spend a few hours mowing a real lawn. Ours is more like pasture. Really. Our neighbor's former horse pasture is across the road from our front yard, putting us in the path of the usual winds. The pasture's gone to weed; the yard's gone to clover and weed. Great if we had grazing animals, but my dogs eat greens only when they need to puke.

Worse, ours is like pasture that's come under constant attack from a super strain of moles and gophers. You can't walk five feet without tripping over a mound, sinking into a hole or twisting an ankle in a collapsing tunnel. Tough enough to walk across. Damn near impossible to push a mower across. I swear, I get a better workout in my arms than my legs.

Last summer, when life got really sucky, I gave up even pretending to take care of the yard, then, when everything dried out enough, I set it on fire. (Hey, I've been setting fires since I was a kid. I'm careful. Never yet had one get away from me.) ((I sound a little like a pyro, don't I? Nothing that exciting. We lived in the country near the railroad tracks, so fire was always a risk. It was necessary to keep the overgrowth cut back -- a controlled burn to lower the odds of a wildfire.))

I have to admit, as I look out over the four-plus acres that I'm supposed to be controlling, the idea of burning occurs to me. But then I'd have to build those muscles some other way, wouldn't I? Rachel9:16 PM