Fifteen Minutes of Delusion

I mowed the back yard today. Hooray! Now, this is not the first time the back yard has been mowed. Nor is it the first time I have taken a mower out back. But this is the first time that I was actually able to finish by myself. My new Toro was able to work through the half-acre of prairie grass in about 100 minutes. My poor cordless electric would have probably taken three days, given that the battery needed to be recharged after an hour, which would only get me a third of the way through due to the smaller deck and weaker propulsion system (aka Me). This is wonderful, because this year I will be able to keep up with this very basic homeownership requirement on my own. No longer will our back yard be a Youth Service Project. Well, maybe I'll let them help with the seven missing fence panels, but pau after that.

They're baaaaaaaack. Warm weather and constant rains have brought back the mosquito - the unofficial state bird of Texas (as well as most of the other 49 states - so says Google). I've lived with mosquitos nearly all of my life. They were the unofficial state bird of Nebraska, as well as the unofficial state bird of Hawaii. I got bit, I itched, and I dealt with it. Yesterday, however, I finally retreated. It was the first morning in quite a while where the lawn was dry enough to try and mow. I did about 10 passes, got about a dozen mosquito bites, and killed probably 30 of the little buggers. I gave up and came inside. I went out in the early afternoon, when it was too hot for mosquitos, and finished the job. These bites have gotten pretty big - about the size of a pencil eraser. This is a nasty variety we have out at the moment. Anna got a half-dozen bites waiting for the bus. I think she's allergic to the mosquito bits. The poor kid has welts the size of quarters - or big...

I mowed the lawn for the first time yesterday. Actually, I mowed the front yard, because I only had an hour. Years ago I bought a Black and Decker CMM1000 cordless electric mower for our 1/3 acre lot. It was perfect - easy start, no emissions, relatively quiet - like a large box fan. I was concerned about the time it would take to use a push mower on an acre, but then I changed my thinking and decided to look at the job as exercise rather than a chore. Suddenly I have the perfect setup - Cardio because I need to hurry and get done; the steep rise in the lot makes for a perfect Stairmaster; Resistance from pushing a 75 lb mower up and down and all around. I wonder if my company's gym reimbursement program will cover part of my mortgage? I got the grass cut (correction: I got the weeds bent over and scratched up ) before the rains came about an hour later. There was some thunder and a little lightning, but mostly it was just a constant soaking rain that lasted until bed time. It was...