Cool - September 5, 2020

 

For many, many years, my morning routine has been to get out of bed, pour a cup of coffee, and sit down at my computer desk to read mail, catch up on news, and otherwise entertain myself until it's time to get ready to go to work.  With The Husband working from home every other week, my computer desk is littered with his work stuff, and I have to adjust my morning routine every other week.  I bring my laptop and my coffee out to the table on the back porch, which is kinda nice.  Yesterday morning, I saw an owl fly out of the woods and land in a tree in the back yard.  .

This morning, I came out to cool weather.  Sitting here in a sleeveless shirt, I almost need a sweater.  

This will be a good day to work in the vegetable garden, if the ground is dry enough.  The bare spot that I saved for turnip greens is grassy and needs to be tilled before the seeds can be planted.  The squash vines need to be pulled up and hauled away.  The peas may need picking and the okra probably needs cutting.  I'm almost excited about it.  

This past couple of weeks of rain has kept me house-bound, and it's about driven me nuts.  Yesterday when I came home from work, for lack of anything better to do, I dragged the push-mower out of the shed and went to work on the yard.  It was really too wet to mow.  No grass was shooting out the spout, and I had to stop every little bit to thump the mower against the ground to knock the grass patty from around the blades. 

I had done the back yard and was almost finished with the front yard when Cousin Roger from across the road came riding up on his lawnmower.  He made a gesture that said, "Do you want me to help you?"  By this time, I was hotter than a firecracker and close to pooped.  I made a return gesture that said, "Have at it!"  He mowed along the tree line next to the road, then aimed his mower at the remaining square that I was cutting.  But he had his blades set higher than the blades on my push mower, and after he mowed one side of the square, I motioned for him to let me finish it with the push mower.  He moved on to the side yard, which is shaded by trees and is mostly covered in soft, green moss.  It didn't really need mowing, but I let him do it, since he was needing something to do, like I was.

When I finished my square, I came inside and fixed two glasses of ice water, and flagged Roger down to give him one.  He rolled up, shut off his engine, and drank his water.  He was probably waiting for me to slip him some money for helping me mow, but . . . nah.  ;)