MRand

My sons have been mowing our yard the last few years but today I decided to give them a day off and mow it myself. I’d forgotten how satisfying and therapeutic mowing grass can be. Not only do you have that wonderful aroma of the freshly mown grass, but constant deep green visual reinforcement that you’re doing something productive, and even artistic if you are attentive to the tracks you are leaving in the grass. Plus there are few more potent reminders of my youth. My best friend and I paid a guy leaving for college $250—a small fortune in those days—-for his two push mowers, a riding mower (to do the giant church lawn and the one or two large yards of the well-to-do whom we’d convinced to hire us), and a trailer to haul it all around. We mowed about 25 yards a week, were our own bosses, went to work when we wanted (early if we wanted to go water skiing in the afternoons; late if we wanted to sleep in), got great tans, saw a ton of girls who would eventually drive by (some were even kind enough to drop off iced tea or lemonade), and eventually saved enough money to buy our first cars. I just keep telling my sons—-it doesn’t get much better than that.

Tonight we’ll cook burgers with the neighbors, then come home and watch “The Road Home”
( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...v=glance&n=130 ) a great travel movie, not because it’s about a long journey, but it transports you to another place, time, and country—and if this doesn’t make you want to visit China, nothing will.

Tomorrow we’ll go out on the lake for fireworks. Happy Fourth of July to all!

LoveItaly

And a Happy 4th of July to you MRand.
I loved your post btw. I use to love to mow the lawn. I am in an apartment nowso no lawn to mow. My daughter does too, she won't let her husband do it (which works for him, lol).

AnnMarie_C

I love to mow the lawn, too, but not in 98 degree weather so sometimes, to avoid heat sickness, I mow earlier than the association allows. Most of our neighbors use a lawn service...for DH, I am the lawn service. ;-) Over the years I've learned to be careful of critters...at least twice a garden snake has slithered in front of the mower; there are lizards to consider--the youngin's especially like to lurk in the grass; and once I woke a skunk who, if possible, appeared more than anything irritated by the noise. The birds and squirrels don't seem to mind me intruding into the space they normally claim as their own. With sweat dripping off my beet red face I love to look back and see the results.

Tonight on the grill DH is making beer butt chicken which sounds gross, however, is excellent! There's even a book of beer butt chicken recipes! Also, grilled corn--yum! Tomorrow night he'll grill eclectic mix of rabbit and bratts on the grill. A little R&B on the 4th!

Earlier this evening I spoke to my step mom who lives on a tributary to the Chesapeake... oh, how I wish I were there! She lives on a hill overlooking a river...it's a wonderful site watching the boats and ships pass by... ***sigh***

seetheworld

LOL! Well I do believe we are the ONLY people who still mow our own lawn in our village. My DH actually came very, very close to hiring a service this year, but decided to wait one more year.

carolyn

DH mows our yard and the front lawn of the woman next door because she so seldom gets it done.

We are having our first ripe tomatoes in BLTs tomorrow, as well as Silver Queen corn on the cob and a Georgia watermelon. The Sunday paper said GA melons are the best ever this year because of the warm, dry weather they have had.

Attended a HOT church picnic yesterday afternoon but didn't stay too long. I couldn't believe the young men playing softball in 96 degree weather.

gomiki

Oh My Goodness...people who like to mow! I grew up with a lot of grass which I had to mow and I will now
do windows but not grass. I would plant most of it with plants and flowers...which would be even more work! Go figure.

Happy Fourth of July to all of you. Especially those with the freshly mowed lawns!

And AnneMarie, that chicken sounds very interesting

chelseaM

beer butt chicken? Wow, that sounds, uh.. interesting. I've heard of beer batter, and apple butter, but not beer and butt in the same recipe.
Well, hope it's good and you can get your pants on tomorrow. It reminds me of the old school joke about calling the store and asking for pigs feet. If they say they have them, you ask, well, where do you buy shoes?
Happy 4th and be safe, Chelsea

gomiki

chelsea: LOL

Malesherbes

I know beer butt chicken! Is this a Texas thang?

Count me as someone who really likes to mow...in San Antonio, in the summer! DH had to buy me a key start Honda though, because a bum shoulder won't let me pull that rope/line/chain, whatever it is. He did not begrudge the extra expense.

Malesherbes

PS...and a 1.2 acre lot may I add? LOL

annesherrod

MRand,
I loved your post. It is nice to read stories like that. I will check out that movie as well.
Anne

Betsy

Are you sure it's not beer can chicken, made famous by Steven Raichlen? It's become my young adult son's greatest culinary triumph.

AnnMarie_C

Well color me red, the book we have is entitled Beer-Can Chicken by Steven Raichlen . It is one of our favorite ways to cook chicken and the left-over carcass & scraps make an excellent chicken broth that compliment a kale, bean and sausage soup.

Hope you got a chuckle from my faux pas, number 5,043...I always do!

amwosu

Beer butt chicken is part of our annual four day family reunion in Ohio. Delish!

DS lost control of the mower on our very hilly lot yesterday and it rolled down, down, down until it stopped smoking and sputtering in a pile of dead leaves. Yikes!

MRand

One detail I forgot to add about my youthful mowing days---we mowed barefoot! We did it for two years and neither one of us came close to hurting ourselves, but I wouldn't let my kids get close to a mower without shoes. Of course, I also hauled our trailer and mowers around town with an old jeep that had no doors and no seatbelts and we didn't think twice about it. It was a different era.

corwin

MRand, your post is fab. who's to say what's mundane. it's all in your attitude! thanks for reminding me how much sastifaction and joy can, if you care to notice, be found in the life right around us.

yesterday, i picked up my daughter from her gate guard job at a local pond where my son was swimming. we all three dashed home to grab forgotten cleats for her evening lacrosse game 45 minutes away at endicott college. she demanded we stay in the car as she ran inside the house. within minutes she came out screaming that there was a strange naked man in our kitchen who told her to "wait." hmmm. i approached slowly, viewed him through the window from the back steps. i yelled, "what are you doing in my house?" and asked him to get dressed and get out. he was now sitting on my living room couch covering himself with my blanket, saying he was invited. i told him i was calling the police and told the children to run across the street to the neighbor's to tell them i needed to use their phone. the police came, told us he was "disoriented, deluded, probably high, and definitely homeless." all we could notice was that he used our calamine lotion and drank a glass of water. the police wanted to scour the place for drugs. i was gone only 45 minutes from the house, and had never locked the doors.
30 minutes late to the lacrosse game, and still shaken, we managed to laugh it off because it was not a malicious tresspasser, but a needy homeless man obviously rejected by our small community of 14,000. i felt sympathetic for him, sad for all the homeless, did not press charges, and returned his cane, left at the back door after the police took him away.
at 9 pm, we left endicott college and went 15 minutes down the road to manchester-by-the-sea, seating ourselves on singing beach to enjoy a bar-none, most unforgetable fireworks display i have seen in the u.s.
i was just thinking.... manchester-by-the-sea is an inordinately priviliedged community, truly lovely in all ways. yet even in my small city of newburyport, there are homeless. ".... but for the grace of god, there go i..." i am blessed in comparison with the homeless, and want to remember that it is more important to give than to receive. wish i'd had the guts not to call the police, and to help the poor man. it's hard to make thoughtful decisions when you're in a hurry.... corwin