Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
I have to admit; I don’t like watering the lawn. If’n I had my druthers, I would have an in-ground sprinkler system. I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve had them before and I have even put them in myself, but those days are behind me. I joke around when I say, “I work out.” I do work out 6 days a week but that doesn’t mean I am anywhere near buff. I work out to stay one step ahead of Father Time. I get around okay for a 75-year-old person but I am nowhere near strong enough to take on any big projects.
So far this year, God has been providing the watering as the rain has been plentiful. The grass is green and the flowers are blooming. Sometimes the grass gets too wet to mow and can become quite unruly. I like to keep my lawn mowed and edged but it’s been difficult this year. I had Armando, our landscaper, redo some “out of shape” grass in the front of the house and he used his equipment to take away all of the grass and smooth out the mounds underneath. I also asked him to reseed with clover instead of regular grass and it is just now beginning to look right. It still has some filling in to do but I think I’m going to like it better.
As a 75-year-old who insists on mowing his own lawn, I manage the task over 3 days. I use electric lawn tools, and they have a limited time before the batteries run out of juice. That works out just fine for me as my physical capacity runs out about the same time. Sometimes I outlast the batteries and sometimes they outlast me. It’s a good system for me and it works. I can work the lawn care in with my 6 days of working out so I end up with 3 days of extra exercise, and 3 days of minimal work. I started taking Sundays off a year or so ago and that gives me one full day of rest (sometimes).
When the plants hibernate in the winter, I just work out in the house. In the summer, I can do the mowing, but I have to deal with the heat. I’ve been having a hard time with my edgers. I own three of them and none of them are working as they should. I can mow and not edge but I prefer to edge every time. I am using Armando more often than I used to as there are some things that I just can’t do anymore. Weeds are the biggest thing. If I bend down and pull weeds for too long, it gets too hard to stand back up. We have been enhancing the landscape and planting trees and shrubs that will fill in the color palette of our yards. Hopefully we will need less and less of that landscaping skill and Armando could do more of the maintenance when I have to give that up. Meanwhile I will hang on to that task as long as I can, I really enjoy doing that. Now if only I can get an edger that works for me, I will continue to be a happy man…
