Friday, April 21, 2006

It's snowing

Pink snow is falling in my backyard. My Japanese Cherry is in full bloom and the wind is carrying off petals into a blizzard. It's the one good kind of fruit tree: beautiful in the spring and no fruit in the fall. I just have one tree; I can't imagine what the trees in Washington DC are like, but if they are this beautiful, I can see why they're treasured.

So Mama Nature is being nice to us and giving us a lovely day. There are whispers that it will be up to 80 degrees this weekend. It happens. We get a teaser weekend in the spring where the temperature soars, then several weeks of rain. It's normal. I've lived here all my life and there's at least one teaser weekend in the spring.

Wednesday we had gorgeous weather and as it was the third sunny day (gasp) in the City of Roses, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to get the lawn mown. I had talked with my neighbors a couple of weeks prior about their doing some yard work for me, but the weather has just been lousy. In the meantime, my lawn is getting loooooong, making me a bit embarrassed even though my neighbors aren't anal about the state of their lawns. It's what I love about this neighborhood. Dandelions? Give the heads to the neighbor's rabbits and just make sure they don't spread about too much. Lawn isn't the proscribed height? Big deal; cut it next week. Edges aren't perfect? We have better things to do with our time like have great conversations about the kids and the doings of the neighbors.

Well, when I'm too embarrassed to sit on my peeling porch to knit because of the state of my lawn, it's time to do something about it. So after I got home from work, I put on my garden duds and started to pull out the mower. "Duffy," I hear. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to mow the lawn."

It's Big Tim, my next door neighbor. "Put the mower away. We're going to do it Friday."

I look at him. "It's dry. It's long. It's embarrassing me. Are you sure?"

"Duffy, put the mower away. It's taken care of."

You don't have to tell me twice. "Oh twist my arm, will ya?!" Back the mower goes in the garage!

I love my neighbors.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a great neighbourhood. We've just had a teaser week. It was up to almost 80 the other day. But this weekend is back to normal spring weather. Down into the 50s and rain. Bit of a shame as Tigger has a couple of birthday parties to go to today and I know one was planning on going to the park to play.