As always: click on any picture to enlarge.Upon buying our new home, we knew that our walk-behind mower was not going to hack our 1-acre property. We left it in Oregon with our renters. Once here, though, Dug was constantly in Philadelphia until Christmas break. Dug's friend, Chris, heroically stepped up and with his riding lawnmower, took on our post-Ike lawn. As their family and ours cleared tree limbs and anything too big to mow, Chris drove around our slightly wooded lot.
Three hours later, our lawn was at the "HOA-approved height."
Stinkin' HOA. By the way, we got our first non-compliance letter! Every house in our neighborhood has a rather large lighted address number sign beside the road. (about 6' wide x 4' tall) The previous owners, for whatever reason, had decided to plant little shrubs at the base of theirs. It must have looked cute in the beginning, but they failed to check the "Mature Height" for these bushes.
Yaupon Holly grow to 15-30 feet! They were having to prune them back into a ridiculous shape. (To understand, try this: put both hands in front of you like you're trying to get someone to stop their car, palms facing away from you, fingers held together but your thumbs are sticking out making "L" shapes. Now imagine in the middle of this shape is our house number and your hands are the shrubs.) Why would someone create work for themselves like that? It was ridiculous. The shrubs weren't happy. They wanted to grow tall, but half of their shape was pruned into a right angle. Luckily, at this point they had only achieved four foot in height. The non-compliance was that the address sign wasn't visible from the street. Our solution: rip the dang stuff out. No more pruning, no more worrying, no more visibility issues. Problem solved!
Back to my original post:
Dug knew that in the summer he would have to mow the lawn about once a week. Three hours every weekend to mow the lawn? Not going to happen. He did his research and found the Beast. I'm serious. It is as wide as a small car.
The Turf Tiger by Scag. Rowr!! (Notice the tiger stripes on the wheel well. Methinks this takes the "tiger" theme a bit too far.) This baby has a six-foot deck (That's the mowing width. Don't feel bad, I didn't know either.) and can achieve 12 mph. It's a zero-turn, which means that he can do pirouettes in place atop his grass-eating monster. With this baby, our lawn only takes an hour. We even found a nice place for the kids to get a ride. (See Princess Cutie Pops, there?) Behind him is the sweeper. It's picking up the pine needles that fell between the first mow and now. Which brings me to the real point of this post, beyond the introduction of our Turf Tiger!
Below, you'll see various needle/leaf piles dumped by the sweeper. What do we do with them? No yard debris bins here. You either throw them in bags and put them on the curb or...burn 'em! Back in Oregon we could only burn three days in April each year. Here in Texas, living in the county, we get to burn whenever we want! Woohoo! Bring on the bonfire!
Here's Dug, feeling that special feeling that men do when they are staring at something that they have lit on fire. Look at those boys. You know in their heads they're thinking, "What else can we burn?"
What we didn't realize is how long it takes an acre's worth of pine needles to burn. Three hours later, the piles were finally reduced to one glowing, smoldering heap. Periodically, until we went to bed, Dug and I would go out and turn the pile and it would catch aflame all over again. We would stand and stare, there is something almost mesmerizing about fire, especially at night, and then go back in.
I'm liking Texas...
I've found it. Proof that aliens are here on the planet. Compare these two pictures. One is a real alien skull. (Yes, it's real, I found this picture on the internet with the caption "Real Alien Skull." That's all the proof I need.) The other, a profile of Victoria Beckham. Coincidence that they are perfect matches? I don't think so. Go with your gut on this one. You've noticed how Posh Spice isn't "quite normal" haven't you? How she is always a bit too perfect. Like she doesn't ever look like she lives, but that she is just there. Stilettos every second of every day, not one hair out of place, beautifully perfect clothing at all times. She is masquerading as a human to collect information for her distant planet as well as guarding Earth's most treasured possession, David Beckham's right leg.
Let this be a lesson to us all: Those conspiracy nut jobs are right! Aliens are here. And if they are right about that, they're probably right about everything! (Except the moon landing, Mythbusters busted that one.) Denver airport is a New World Order prison facility/underground bunker. Smoking doesn't cause lung cancer, it protects us from airborne radiation. The US did bring down the twin towers with missile-armed airliners and Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone, he had helper buddies at the grassy knoll. (Well maybe not the JFK one, that's just crazy.)
What do we do with this information? I'm not quite sure at this point. But if you ever run into Mrs. Beckham treat her with the utmost respect. If I were you I'd give her a knowing look while slowly nodding my head and then submissively bowing. I'm pretty sure aliens are friendly if we just let on that we know they are superior and we're okay with it.
