Here at Nogglestead, we could simply say mow the grass. Not mow the lawn which implies a square footage of uniform grass, and Nogglestead has myriad types of grasses, ground cover, and weeds in lieu of a lawn. However, mowing five acres minus the buildings that make Nogglestead truly a compound leaves one with plenty of time to think of expressions to more poetically capture the experience. So here, gentle reader, are some of the best ones.
Running the Nogglestead 500.
Because the discharge is on the right side of the mower, you’re always turning left, just like NASCAR.
Driving to St. Louis In My Backyard
Early on, I realized that the three to four hours I spend on the lawnmower when cutting the grass is about the time it takes to drive from Springfield to Saint Louis.
Listening to a Long Country Marathon
As I have recently mentioned, my radio headphones can only pick up one station relatively clearly on every spot of the grass, and that’s a newly bro country station. So I get four hours of girl-get-up-in-my-truck punctuated with some heartbreak. Mowing the lawn does not often put me in a good mood.
Closing the Flower Shop
The youngest son still likes to pick flowers for his mother, and when I’m about a week late in mowing, it has a wide selection of flowering weeds and wild daisies for him to choose from. Until such time as I chop them all down.
Feeding the Birds
Once in a while, when I’m out mowing the back field, one or two birds will start swooping and diving around me. It weirded me out the first couple of times. I thought perhaps I was nearing their nests, and they were trying to drive me away, but it’s a relatively flat field and not good nesting for anything. Later, I realized I was kicking up some insects, and the birds were eating them.
Chasing the Wildlife
In addition to the birds and the bugs, from time to time, something will take off running or hopping ahead of the mower. I’ll slow to let a frog get out of my path, but yesterday I chased a rodent a ways to make him reconsider Nogglestead as a future home. Of course, if a rabbit takes off running, it’s best to go very, very slowly, as parent rabbits will run away from their babies to try to draw the predators away.
At any rate, there are others I thought of and have forgotten. Four hours is a long time.
