Lawn Maintenance Drama

I love my riding mower!

Lyn persuaded me to get it last year after our push mower broke for the 50th time. I was looking at a nice self propelled, but she was leaning towards this instead. This is difficult for me to say but man was she right. After being out side for about an hour and a half on Saturday I came inside and made the declaration that if my mower had the appropriate orifices I would make sweet love to it. Lyn thought I was going a bit far with my affection. She said she could see that feeling towards some kind of sports car but not towards a lawn mower. While I can understand the sports car sentiment as well a sports car looks cool and gets you from point A to B but it can do what my mower did on Saturday.

That's right, it mowed the back 40 in an hour. What used to take me all day with the old push mower was turned into a manageable chore and that's with all the crazy slopes in our yard and the additional drama that came with mowing. What kind of drama can come with mowing? Well see if you can look below and see what I luckly saw while riding through the tall unkempt grass in our backyard.

Yup, I found Uno in middle of our yard hidden in all the tall fescue. He ran over to our fence and tried to act like he didn't see me. I scooped him up in one of the planter pots we have in the backyard. I had to move him out of the path of the mower and preferably out of the yard as that's where monkey hangs out and I don't think the two of them would get along well.

I threw a penny in with him just so you could get a size reference. When I brought him to see Lyn she immediately ran off to the kitchen and came back with a bag of baby carrots. I tried to tell her I didn't think he was interested in eating and probably wouldn't won't baby carrots. The response that I got was "BABY BUNNIES EAT BABY CARROTS!!!" No arguing with that kind of enthusiasm. Any way Uno was safely placed in the woods behind our house just outside the fence. He could come back an visit but was safe from the mower and Monkey dog.

I returned to the mower and then thought I better check around just to make sure we didn't have anymore little visitors in the backyard. That's when I ran into these guys.

Dos,

and Tres. They were a little feistier than Uno and kept trying to jump out of the flower pot that I put them in. I managed to get them out of the backyard and over with Uno before they hopped out .

After safely deporting all of our illegal aliens I did one more good sweep of the area and found their burrow in the mulch around our Japanese Maple. They had dug down, lined it with fur and had probably been hanging in our back yard for weeks without any of us even knowing. I would have at least thought Monkey would have found them. That is what she was bred for, but then again we are talking about a dog we named Monkey and the name certainly fits.

Conversations with the Doughnut Lady

So my camera is out of batteries and I'm too lazy/busy to put new ones in it. However since the only person that every really reads my blog has threatened to delete me if I don't post something I figured I would throw this little story up that I've been hanging onto for awhile.

The misses is pregnant, and as you know pregnant women have food cravings. On a good day she loves Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. I mean who doesn't! This day she was jonesing for some KK doughnuts, unfortunately I had passed the only KK on the way home. So out comes the trusty iPhone and I input our zip and doughnuts into the search to find the nearest doughnut place. Luckily their was one on the way home so I gave them a call to find out exactly where they were located. Here is the conversation that followed.

ring ring

Doughnut Lady: Hello …(indistinguishable mumblings…) doughnuts.

Me: Hi. Where are you located?

Doughnut Lady: Doughnuts!

Me: Yes, I know you sell doughnuts, but where are you located?

Doughnut Lady: …Doughnuts?…

Me: No! WHERE…ARE…YOU…LOCATED?

Doughnut Lady: …273…(indistinguishable mumblings)…doughnuts?

Me: Look, if I’m heading away from Atlanta on Hwy. 78 are you on the left or the

right?

Doughnut Lady: ……Doughnuts?!

Me: Listen to me. Are you in the same parking lot as the movie theater?

Doughnut Lady:…eh…I’m alone.…… Doughnuts???

I hang up on the Donut Lady.

Never the less I found the Doughnut Lady and her magical doughnut shop only to discover that it had a health score of 73. As you can guess baby mama went without the doughnut ladies famous ecoli filled doughnuts and I went to Krispy Kreme for some hot and fresh doughnuts the following evening.

Playtime!

Playtime with Monkey is awesome! She has so much energy and has such a good time it's just infectiously fun. She tends to be one of the most difficult things I photograph mainly because she moves faster than my shutter. In most of her pictures you'll notice everything is nice and sharp except for her head because she's always moving it.

99 out of 100 playtime photos come out like this one. Monkey says I should have shot where she was going to be instead of where she was.

Sometimes we miss the ball. That whole eye mouth coordination is tough.

Most of the time she gets the ball no trouble, but catching the ball isn't what playtime is all about. Playtime is about…

Running!

and running

and running

and running!

until we can't run anymore.

For such a crazy little dog once you wear her out she can be very good, and ridiculously sweet. Plus when she slows down a little bit you get to see how expressive her face really is. After playtime we run through the basement and up the stairs to the kitchen. She always beats me up the stairs but I usually catch up to find a scene like this.

"Wow! I'm really high up."

"and there is still a long way to go"

"Can you pick me up? Please."

Spring

Everyone I know is doing this whole blog thing so I figured I would jump on the bandwagon. Since spring is when all things are starting and growing new again I thought I would start my new blog off with some springtime photos from the yard. With all the rain and the amazing weather we've had even the snow earlier this week couldn't stop a few things from popping up.

All the various lilies are starting to sprout and the day lilies at the end of the porch just exploded out of the ground. I'm convinced they would still be there even if someone dropped a nuclear bomb on the house.

Even the candy tuft is starting to bloom. Amazing considering we just had a March snow a few days ago.

"Can we have play time now?"

"No, not yet."

Our stalky Crinum Lilies have started to push through the mulch.

"You said their would be PLAYTIME!"

"I know. I'm taking pictures right now. Hold your Monkeys."

These purple flowers are pretty. I have no idea what they're called but I'm sure the wifey could give you the Latin name and species plus all you ever need to know about the proper way to plant them.

"I have a ball for when it's play time!"

"I'm so glad you found your ball. We'll play soon"

What yard in Georgia would be complete without a magnolia tree. Ours is a Little Jem Magnolia which means it's a mini and only gets about 15 feet tall. Speaking of minis.

"Pllleeeeaaase can we have playtime now?"

"Yes, now we can have playtime."