Luck of the Irish

            Will the luck of the Irish be with me? 

I went out to my past employer for two reasons. One; I needed to pick up my retiree order. They let old people that have retired from DIB purchase merchandise from them but you have to pay them before they let you take it home. Two; I wanted to enter a drawing for a lawn mower.  By donating to the United Way you get a chance to win a real nice lawn mower.  I was told it cost about $1,900.00 and was a 54 inch cut with a 24 HP, V twin motor. It is larger than I need but I was willing to take a chance. I donated and brought my purchase home.

I had purchased fire ant killer and I needed to broadcast it over the entire yard. It was hot and I spread the fire ant killer in the front yard. When I went to the back yard I put on a long sleeved shirt to keep the sun off my arms. I went over the entire yard twice, first north and south the east and west. That was tiring but after finishing I decided to mow the back yard. Note; in the short time I was working in the front yard I received a light sun burn on my arms.

Knowing I will likely win the big mower and the fact my yard needed to be mowed real bad, I pulled my push mower out of the shed in preparation for mowing the back yard. Before I mow I walk the yard picking op anything that I don’t want to mow over. There were a lot of twigs and small sticks from the trees. I had noted in an earlier posting that we had not seen any squirrels for a while, well, they are back.

The darn squirrels chew the twigs off the tree to use for building a nest, but they drop some. It seemed to me as if they had dropped a lot.

It was Thursday which is a day earlier than usual for mowing but the grass needed it and I did not have anything else to do. I vary the height of the mower when mowing the back yard. The thicker grass the higher the mower and the thinner grass is cut shorter.  I noticed that the grass was piling up as I mowed and it really needed to be mowed twice to make the yard look nice. I decided to wait on mowing it twice thinking I will use the new mower after tomorrows drawing.

Friday morning I prepared to mow the front yard. First I trimmed around everything with the string trimmer. I could not believe there were more twigs on the ground. It seemed as if the squirrels were dropping them intentionally.

I started mowing the front yard and realized that I had the mower much closer to the ground than I wanted it to be. It is hard to believe that I, “a recognized Lawnologist” would make such an error. It was too late to change now; I will have to mow the entire yard at that height.  I soon decided that there was too much grass clippings being left on the ground. I always mow the front yard twice; once east/west and then north/south. That gives it a nice finished look.

Today before the second mowing I went to the shed and got the grass catcher. The idea was to pick up the loose grass during the second mowing.  That actually worked, but my work was not finished.  After completing the second mowing of the front yard I could see runners from the St. Augustine grass that had popped up due to cutting the grass to short. You guessed it; I mowed the front yard a third time.

I was tired of walking and I knew the riding mower is just what I need. The drawing was held and there must have been some snafu in the drawing because someone else won.  I am the Irish Boy that should have won. Darn it!

               After all that work, I had to eat left overs for lunch, and then I took a well-deserved nap.

From the Lawnologist mind of     Don Ford      happy Father’s Day if it applies.

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