I hate my lawn

Well that perhaps might be a little extreme. I certainly don’t like taking care of it. More to the point I don’t like mowing it. Now it’s not a huge yard but there’s just enough of it to be a pain. I live in a row house. I live in the middle of the row. Any device that I use to cut the grass has to be either walked around the block to the other side needing cutting or it has to be walked through the house.

At one point in time I actually had a lawn mower. It was a push mower but still a mower. I tried to adjust the mower so it would cut the grass shorter. I followed the directions as best as I could. However it seems to me they were writing by someone where English was a third, fourth or fifth language. It will still cut grass but when I stop pushing it the blades spin. They are not all that cheap (starting around $75 and going up from there) so I decided not to get another one. I use a weed whacker instead. It works fairly well that is until the line runs out and I have to replace it. Supposedly this is an easy process to do. The spool fits in fine. But inevitably the line doesn’t advance correctly and I have to take the spool off and unwind and then rewind the line. I get about ten minutes or so of use and then I have to putz around with it again.

When you are in a row house you share your yard with the neighbors on either side of you. One of them doesn’t mow the lawn all that often. When they do they only due there half of it. Usually when I mow the yard I do the whole thing. It’s just easier than trying to figure out exactly where the property line is. My neighbor to the north has landscaped her yard. She put in a tree and mulched the rest. It really looks nice.

It gave me some ideas on what to do in my yard. Last year I dug up a small area in front and planted some flowers. I decided this year to expand that area. Then I decided to dig up some more yard a little closer to the house. I left a space so I could walk between the two areas. I’m thinking I might get some stepping stones and put them down there or maybe some mulch. I’m going to wait until the flowers get a little more established and then mulch then too. I think it looks really great and there’s much less lawn to mow.