Choices

Two days of glorious sunshine in a row!  I know, I know.  Come summer and I'll be whining about the heat and doing rain dances, but these days of temperatures in the high 50s with nary a dark cloud in the sky are perfection.  And what does one do on such a day?  Well, there were choices...there was always housework and dusting or there were weeds growing high again in the west field.   Hmmm.  No matter how many times I flipped that coin, somehow it always came up "Mow!"  Not willing to fight fate, I went out to give John Dear some exercise.  I needed the practice anyhow.

John has a much wider cutting base than good old Fu Manchu, so I have to learn new mowing patterns.  Fu and I had mowed the property so many times that, like the milkman's horse, he probably could have done it on his own.  (Yes, milk was still delivered to the house in glass bottles with little paper caps when I was a kid.  No, the milkman didn't drive a horse.)  The west field is probably the largest flat area on the property, so I didn't try out the cruise control.  I'm saving that for the side yard with the steep slope down to the backyard.  Stepping on the gas peddle while trying to brace with one's feet....  As it is, at this time of year there are gaps in the pattern where I've swerved around patches of Baby Blue Eyes, trying to preserve these tiny wildflowers.  Years back, the south pasture would be covered with lupine, a whole carpet of purple-blue.  Years of cutting down and disking under to keep the star thistle down completely wiped out the lupine.  The star thistle, however, is still rampant.  I would have been willing to stay outside and mow for the rest of the day, but before I can tackle the other yards I've got to go around with the cart and pick up all the branches knocked down by wind and rain.  It's probably just as well.  Being a bigger dude, John is harder to steer and the field having been scraped last season made for a bumpy ride.  I'm feeling it today.

Today is son Pete's birthday.  We'll celebrate together tomorrow.  I gave him a choice of places for lunch.  He chose Bones.  Excellent!

It was a good day.