The contradictions of human nature
Apr. 21st, 2009 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaunthieAfter the last two blog posts rambling on in depth about yard work and gardening and the joy I find therein, you might be under the impression that I enjoy all yard work, and do all the yard chores.
You would be wrong.
I do love gardening, even when I'm tired and sore and covered in mud and swearing about how STUPID I am for having put in garden beds and why the hell am I doing this anyway? Yes, even when I'm practically swearing it off, I know deep down that I have the gardening gene, and that a few hours or maybe a day later I will be all enthused about green growing things again. It's in the blood; both my mother and my paternal grandmother had the gardening gene too, and the spectacular gardens to show for it. (Alas, Grandma H's gardens are a thing of the past, but my mother still manages to have stunningly beautiful garden beds every year despite the double challenges of less-than-ideal growing conditions and increasing trouble with her joints.) Gardens are *good*.
Lawns, however...yuck. I have absolutely *no* desire whatsoever to spend any time dealing with the lawn, unless of course it's to rip out large sections for new garden beds. I don't want to have to mow it or edge it or feed it or gods forbid WATER the silly stuff in the middle of high summer and watering restrictions. Grass...it's a weed. It gets into my garden beds. And yet I have quite a bit of it, although it's less lawn than there was when I first moved in. Partially that's just a factor of time; it would take a ton of time to rip out all the lawn on the property, even with the assistance of a spiffy rototiller like Jake's. It would also be rather expensive to replant all of it with nice shrubs and perennials and low-care annuals and the like. Not to mention the nuisance factor of trying to keep yet another street-side median strip's worth of garden beds from being wantonly trampled and/or vandalized by thoughtless idiots and random parkers.
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fisherbear grew up in a condominum and has no inclination for yard work. He not only has no "gardening" gene, he also apparently did not get the "lawn" gene that so many of my male co-workers have. (Why people obsess over the quality of their lawns is beyond me, but there's no questioning that a significant subset of the population does exactly that.) So I've hired out the lawn-mowing chores for years now, never mind the irony. Unfortunately, the nice man who took care of the lawn for a very reasonable fee just vanished this winter; the number for his yard service no longer works, and there's no indication that he's still in business anywhere. (I hope he's all right.) I realized I would either have to go out and buy a lawn mower and an edger and take care of the lawn myself, or find some other service to take care of these chores. Which proved surprisingly difficult to do. There are lots of services advertised for landscaping services, or whole-yard maintenance folks, but surprisingly few "we'll cut your grass" people, and even fewer that come with any recommendations at all. And neighborhood kids looking to hire out lawn-cutting services, as several of my friends and acquaintances did when I was a kid? Gone the way of the do-do, apparently, much as teenage babysitting. (What do kids do for spending money these days? Work real jobs, I guess, instead of babysitting or delivering the paper or cutting the neighborhood lawns. But I digress.)
Fortunately I did find someone, and they're supposed to come by today and perform the first lawn cutting and edging. I hope they turn out to be as good as the recommendation claims. The owner seems nice, and reasonably knowledgable about plants in general, so here's hoping. Because I find that even though I hate the lawn, and have no desire to take care of it, I also cannot stand having an untidy, unmowed, and otherwise untended lawn, or even one that has gotten "too long".
Yes, I know. Contradiction city. But there it is.
You would be wrong.
I do love gardening, even when I'm tired and sore and covered in mud and swearing about how STUPID I am for having put in garden beds and why the hell am I doing this anyway? Yes, even when I'm practically swearing it off, I know deep down that I have the gardening gene, and that a few hours or maybe a day later I will be all enthused about green growing things again. It's in the blood; both my mother and my paternal grandmother had the gardening gene too, and the spectacular gardens to show for it. (Alas, Grandma H's gardens are a thing of the past, but my mother still manages to have stunningly beautiful garden beds every year despite the double challenges of less-than-ideal growing conditions and increasing trouble with her joints.) Gardens are *good*.
Lawns, however...yuck. I have absolutely *no* desire whatsoever to spend any time dealing with the lawn, unless of course it's to rip out large sections for new garden beds. I don't want to have to mow it or edge it or feed it or gods forbid WATER the silly stuff in the middle of high summer and watering restrictions. Grass...it's a weed. It gets into my garden beds. And yet I have quite a bit of it, although it's less lawn than there was when I first moved in. Partially that's just a factor of time; it would take a ton of time to rip out all the lawn on the property, even with the assistance of a spiffy rototiller like Jake's. It would also be rather expensive to replant all of it with nice shrubs and perennials and low-care annuals and the like. Not to mention the nuisance factor of trying to keep yet another street-side median strip's worth of garden beds from being wantonly trampled and/or vandalized by thoughtless idiots and random parkers.
fisherbear grew up in a condominum and has no inclination for yard work. He not only has no "gardening" gene, he also apparently did not get the "lawn" gene that so many of my male co-workers have. (Why people obsess over the quality of their lawns is beyond me, but there's no questioning that a significant subset of the population does exactly that.) So I've hired out the lawn-mowing chores for years now, never mind the irony. Unfortunately, the nice man who took care of the lawn for a very reasonable fee just vanished this winter; the number for his yard service no longer works, and there's no indication that he's still in business anywhere. (I hope he's all right.) I realized I would either have to go out and buy a lawn mower and an edger and take care of the lawn myself, or find some other service to take care of these chores. Which proved surprisingly difficult to do. There are lots of services advertised for landscaping services, or whole-yard maintenance folks, but surprisingly few "we'll cut your grass" people, and even fewer that come with any recommendations at all. And neighborhood kids looking to hire out lawn-cutting services, as several of my friends and acquaintances did when I was a kid? Gone the way of the do-do, apparently, much as teenage babysitting. (What do kids do for spending money these days? Work real jobs, I guess, instead of babysitting or delivering the paper or cutting the neighborhood lawns. But I digress.)Fortunately I did find someone, and they're supposed to come by today and perform the first lawn cutting and edging. I hope they turn out to be as good as the recommendation claims. The owner seems nice, and reasonably knowledgable about plants in general, so here's hoping. Because I find that even though I hate the lawn, and have no desire to take care of it, I also cannot stand having an untidy, unmowed, and otherwise untended lawn, or even one that has gotten "too long".
Yes, I know. Contradiction city. But there it is.
