Sunday, May 13, 2007

The back 40


The “back 40” as we like to call the back lot, is entirely overgrown with clover and is in desperate need of mowing. There is clover elsewhere on the yard, but there it’s so thick and strong that the scent of it fills one’s head and makes one want to lie down on it like a bed and sleep. Of course, then you’d wake up crawling all over with creatures of the tick, chigger and mosquito variety; but it would be dreamingly pleasant for a few moments.

The clover and grass and weeds that look grass-like enough to pass for our lawn is so tall from the last two weeks’ rain, I’m not entirely certain the mower will go over it all without choking. Those blades need to be sharpened, for starters, and then there’s the fact we just got rid of our heavy grass and weed trimmer, figuring the yard was too small for it and it too large for our needs. Jay Lamm, a cartoonist who works with Beth needed something of the sort, and so he traded it for a garden variety weed whacker, but it’s electric and so won’t reach out that far regardless. It’ll do just fine around front and the immediate back yard, however.

Anyways, smelling the clover and feeling the cool breeze blowing when it was just humid and almost 90 degrees yesterday was very pleasant, as was getting up at noon and settling down on the couch with the doors open wide to read a book. The Two Towers was on TV last night and so of course I watched it, or at least, I watched the portions of it that don’t mar the book too terribly, of which there are many.

(Of course a book must be changed to make it into a movie, I’ve always understood that. But one needn’t wreak havoc on the characters that way -- when you put aside all the dragons and goblins and magic and fighting, it was the depth and the stolidity of the characters what made it so worthwhile. There were so many parts of those films where I felt I was watching a cartoon; Spiderman had much more depth and strength in its secondary characters than Lord of the Rings ended up with.)

So early this afternoon, I sat on the couch (with the kitty, of whom I shall tell you about in another blog) dozing on the sofa chair, feeling and smelling the breeze, listing to the chatter of squirrels and mockingbirds and reading again, as I have read many times before, about the beautiful country of The Shire, and of the adventures that visit several of its inhabitants and their friends.

Beth and I need to go shopping for groceries in a few minutes. As we always go out of town (because the stores here don’t have half the goods we purchase) into Wake Forest, which is about a half hour form here, the trip always takes several hours, especially if we stop to get something to eat first. So the lawn will get to grow a few more inches until Wednesday, when we both have some time off, and perhaps a few inches more if it is raining that day. Since I am working late on Friday and some on Saturday, it would be rough to have to give the yard a full other week to grow -- and I might have to get out a scythe to cut it or call Jay back -- here’s to wishing for no rain and a cool afternoon on Wednesday!