By Jerry Riley

It’s getting to be time to run to Ace or the garden store and buy grass seed and fertilizer (unless last fall’s campaign ads did the job for you). We need to check the hoses and garden equipment. We’ll spend time watering the grass, spraying for weeds or hiring a lawn care service to take care of the yard. We buy oil and gas, pay for tune ups–or do it ourselves (maybe you can; I know I can’t).
We forget about our back pain from last summer or stock up on aspirin. We continue to complain, even as we mow and trim what we worked so hard to grow in the first place–not just once, but we water, weed and mow the lawn all summer.
Some people mow every week, whether the grass needs it or not. Others mow only if they can see a difference.
I use the rule of foot. If I can see the top of my shoes when I walk through my yard – I don’t need to mow.
A better method may be to mow a strip, and if you can’t see where you mowed, you can put the mower away for the day.
Of course, the real downside is mowing is good exercise and often healthy, and what a revoltin’ development that is. Even a riding mower is some exercise- so long as you use the cup holder for diet soda.
Then we have the leaves to deal with. Raking them many, many times and having them in place for municipal pick up or being rained out so the yard is full of leaves when the snow finally melts.
I hate to cut this short — but I’m going to have to–lest the leaves blow away!

Jerry Riley is an occasional commentator for the News Bulletin. He is a retired telecommunications supervisor.
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