First of all let me tell this story:

When I was in high school, my sister loved mowing our front lawn.

I have absolutely no idea why.  The front lawn sloped down to a 5 foot cliff of decorative rock.  Meaning one slip and you and the lawn mower are going right over the edge.  I never had any interest in mowing the lawn in the slightest, but one day I decided I was going to give it a try.  I mean if my sister could do it surly I could….

Well I pulled out the old lawn mower, I have no idea if I had help getting it to start or if I just figured it out on my own.  However I managed to do it, it started.  So there I am directly in front of my front door the lawn mower growling loudly and I start to push it forward.  Following the line of the lawn down the slope so I can go along the cliff first, get it out of the way.  Well the only way to get to the cliff is to go down the part of the lawn that has the smallest degree of slope.  So I do.  I start down the slope and,

SSSSSLLLLLIIIIPPPPPP!!!!

Fresh cut grass is moist and apparently that makes it slick.

I slipped right down landing on my bottom grasping the heavy lawn mower with all my 5 foot hundred pound frame.  I held onto that lawn mower as though my life depended upon it.  Pictures of it falling off the cliff sending the blade flying…..

Somehow I managed to release the bar that kept it running and then slowly and carefully lowered it down on the top of the rock cliff.  I may have left it sitting there, I can’t imagine I was able to pull it back up the slippery slope.  Since then I have never attempted to mow a lawn.  I’ve never needed to.

So now ten plus years later I find myself living next door to a field of dandelions that is my neighbors front lawn.  Now I’m not judging or anything, new young couple probably their first house, they probably don’t even own a lawn mower….  But although it may not bother them in the least (or maybe it does…) that their front lawn looks like crap and is spreading the evil and pernicious seed of the dandelion onto my lawn, it bothers me.  Selfish as it may sound, it bothers me.

Now should I harbor no fears of the lawn mower I would be over there in a second to mow it for them.  In fact I would mow their entire yard, (the backyard is not yet landscaped and thus it is basically just weeds) just to keep the weeds short and lawn like for the sake of my son who often loses baseballs and such over the fence.  I could actually send him over to get said balls because he wouldn’t be in over his head in weeds.  Still my point is I desperately want to fix their yard so that it is visually bearable.  As it is I cannot, I cannot mow their lawn for them.

The fact that their front lawn looks so terrible and mine is so lush, thick, and green, well I think it reflects bad on my family as their next door neighbor.  I have no problem whatsoever helping them tend to their yard, but I can’t seem to do it.  Not only because I can’t bring myself to use the lawn mower, but because my poor husband barely has time to mow our lawn and thus trying to fit in the neighbors lawn is basically impossible.

So here I sit at 5:00 in the morning worrying about my neighbors lawn.

If nothing else if I never manage to find a way to mow it, the kids love that lawn full of dandelions just waiting to be plucked up held up to their faces and then with a deep breath they send the seeds dancing in the wind….