John Deere Really Sucks

Fairly often (because I have lost a lot of weight in the past few years), the subject turns to what I do to keep it off. I have my stock answer: I walk in the winter and work in the yard in the summer.

Depending on who I'm talking to, I usually get one of two responses: "Oh, I mow the grass, too," or a smirk and "Oh, I mow the grass, too."

I've been "working in the yard" quite a bit this week (I finished a book the other day -- yea!!) Keep in mind that these are fairly typical yard days for me. Also keep in mind that we're trying to fake a yard out of what used to be pasture, and that the gophers and moles, damn their black hearts, have boobytrapped every inch with tunnels, holes and mounds.

Okay, in the last three days, I have:

-- mowed the side yard and a part of the front yard (maybe 3/4 of an acre) with the walk-behind mower (because, as the title says, John Deere sucks. The yellow on it is appropriate, since it's a nearly three-thousand-dollar LEMON.)

-- shoveled about 20 wheelbarrowsful of dirt and gravel out of our driveway and hauled it off. (We have a long dirt-and-gravel drive that slopes downward to the concrete part of the driveway and parking pad -- yeah, some goober designed that. So every time it rains, dirt and gravel get swept onto the concrete and, eventually, I have to shovel it out again.)

-- packed up some throwaways (an old plastic tub and some very old tables) that the trash guys wouldn't take because they weren't in bags. Well, they are now. In pieces, but still in bags.)

-- moved an old steel-pipe frame about eight feet (not that it was really heavy, but all four feet were buried in two inches of dirt, so I couldn't push or pull it. I had to lift it about a foot off the ground, then push. Whew.)

-- with the help of rigid wire, bolt cutters and cable ties, turned the pipe frame into a log holder, then filled it with logs from the ice-storm branches I cut up in January

-- hauled dirt to fill in some holes dug by the dogs

-- Weed-eated around the wysteria which is in bloom and gorgeous!

-- picked a new place for the forsythia bush that the dogs have been trying to kill

-- dug a hole in said new place, including digging out rock after rock after rock

-- dug up forsythia and replanted in new hole

-- filled in old hole

-- stapled weed fabric around the forsythia, then hauled sandstone boulders to build a border around it

-- hauled more firewood from the ice-storm damage

-- raked, shoveled and hauled off doggie poo (six dogs a day in the same part of the yard . . . it piles up)

-- killed a snake by accident (I don't like snakes, but the only ones I kill are copperheads -- though if the water moccasins ever make it this far uphill, I'll add them to my list). This was just a grass snake who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sorry!

-- tied up the irises whose stalks couldn't hold them upright

-- trimmed crape myrtles so they don't scratch the truck when we're backing up

-- trimmed bushes at other end of the house so they don't scrape me when I'm going to the office

-- hauled some downed branches to the burn pile

-- edged the curved side of the driveway with a shovel and my ten little fingers. We actually have about six-eight inches more of driveway than I realized!

You know what? I think I'll print out this blog and the next time someone (usually male) smirks and says, "Yeah, I mow the grass, too," I'll just hand it to him. Rachel6:07 PM