Saturday morning, a terrible storm swept through my front yard, ripping limbs from trees and leaving the ground carpeted with twigs and leaves. Meteorologists didn’t notice the storm, but I named it myself: Darrell with a Chainsaw.
Like most of my home improvement projects, it started as something small and simple, but quickly snowballed into an all-day marathon of sweat and frustration. This one start with the lawn care guy I hired to aerate the place mentioning the true reason our front lawn looks like a mass grave for the Mud People.
“It’s these trees,” he said. “They’re not letting enough sun in.”
You mean the burning orb that reduces all grass to a withered yellow zombie husk?
“Yeah. Grass needs four hours a day of it.”
I paid the man and realized, as he strode off onto the horizon like a cowboy whose work here is done, that I’d prefer zombie grass to no grass at all. To the branch cutters! But when those weren’t cutting it any more (ha HA!) I knew I needed the big guns.
We’ve been blessed with neighbors who are well-stocked in manly power tools. They’ve been blessed with a neighbor who will borrow those tools, and therefore help justify the expense of purchasing them in the first place. (“See, honey? That’s the third time Darrell’s borrowed my electric nail-puller. Totally worth the $200 I paid for it.”)
I popped next door to borrow a cup of chainsaw. It was electric, but still gave off a satisfying roar that made me want to say, “Groovy,” in my best Ash voice.
I’m not sure how long I spent hacking at the trees in my yard. Once the chainsaw flow got going, hours passed like minutes, and tree bark fell like rain. It was glorious.
…and then the blade was too dull to use any more, the flow was broken, and I realized all the clean-up work ahead of me. Weariness settled in. Weariness and anger.
“Curse you, lawn guy!” I yelled, shaking the chainsaw to the sky. “Curse you and your zombie grass!”
