Carli Lidonnici from Tiny Savages wrote a beautiful piece last week – “I Like To Mow”.
I have been thinking a lot of grass lately. This post brought my thoughts to the surface.
It’s hard not to think about grass, or mowing, when you look at grass like ours. It’s like the old man with nostril hairs you can’t not look at when he talks; our grass has been coming out of all orifices.
Our veggie patch has been more grass than veggie.
Grass has swept into every so-called garden bed, and grown taller than any plant.
With wild wet weather, there has been little opportunity to mow.
But that can’t just be it, can it? Almost every other house in our village keeps their grass like a number one crew cut. How do they get it so damn neat?
Walking round our estate, it’s hard to imagine who keeps such lawns. Houses are shut up. People are at work. Children at school. No longer just an older person’s community, these houses are homes to families. But families are not home.
Who mows the grass?
We aren’t the only house in the village with un-neat lawn. There are a few houses, and they all happen to be houses of people I know. Surprisingly (or not), people with young children.
Carli writes that her love of mowing comes from a place of privilege – of owning a good lawnmower and having a small lawn. There is privilege, too, in having time.
It’s hard to articulate to others where the time goes once young children are on the scene. I know it looks easy – is easy, and enjoyable, and sunshine (mostly) – but it’s so time consuming. Seriously, at some point it becomes a privilege to pee.
And when you weave in renovations and full-time work, having time to mow the lawn between thunderstorms is like squeezing water from a carrot. It ain’t happening.
Today my lawn was backyard blitzed. My aunt and uncle, in town for but a weekend, with my parents blitzed every square inch of my tufty old lawn. The veggie patch – more a patch of tall grass, was blitzed. The herb garden was born again. My neighbours audibly breathed a sigh of relief. So did everyone who ever had to look at our lawn.
There is much to be said about a bunch of lovely people coming in on their own accord and conducting a blitz. They could see we have been inundated to the eyeballs, and had the heart to lend a brushcutting arm.
I would genuinely like to mow more – scratch that, like my husband to mow more. But I would also like him to spend our only hour together a day sitting down, having dinner with us, before the bedtime rush begins.
One day we will be retired and our children will be grown-up, and we will keep on top of the north coast weedfest. We may even be able to weed and mow for our daughters. Until then, thank you to my blitzers, and sorry to those who have to endure our long grass.
Linking with Essentially Jess, because I wrote this blog on a Tuesday.
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