We are in the burbs now. A place where people have lawn flags for each season and repave their driveway once a year. They have electric hedge trimmers, riding mowers with bags attached (for their 20ft of lawn), driveway brooms, garage brooms (they're different), leaf vacuums, and enough salt to kill every last slug on earth. Each person obsesses over their yard. We can't tell if this makes them happy or distracts them from the fact that they're not so happy. Either way- Miles and I don't fit in.
The other morning it was 20 something degrees out. We were taking Chicken for a winter walk together and being cute. Miles said that today was the day that he was going to rake the yard (it wasn't).
"But, we're so close to winter! The snow will hide everything!"
"Every time the wind blows, all of our leave fill up everyone else's yard.
They're starting to hate us."
So, ambitious Miles decided to go for it. When we got home I talked him into eating breakfast before he went out to work (all part of my evil plan to not work all day). We made maple fried sweet potatoes, bacon, cinnamon raisin toast, bits of cheese and fresh pear. I made two huge cups of coffee and we snuggled up.
...and then we fell asleep.
When we woke up, Miles was a little mad. He wanted to get so much done today and nothing worked out. I proclaimed that today was our indaygence! It was a FULL day of indulgence, and no yard work should hold us back. I said in Braveheart style
"We deserve this! Why is everyone getting rid of their leaves the second that
they fall on the ground? Why are they cutting their grass so short it's like
green tinted dirt? They take away all natural fertilizer (like dog poop
and leaves) and bag it up, throw it out, and get confused in spring that
their lawn isn't picture perfect. Then they buy gallons of Miricle Grow
and grass seed- just to murder it again the next year! We are doing our
yard a favor! We are letting nature happen!"
"I'm still going to rake the leaves...it will just have to be tomorrow."
"Oh. You still want to lounge around though, right?"
"I mean, I don't have enough time to do any work."
"Awesome!" (I'm an asshole.)
We ate more snacks, caught up on some T.V., he opened the bottle of wine that I wanted to give to his mother as a stocking stuffer (fuck it- indaygence). We went full on Lounge Crazy.
That night it snowed, and iced, and rained. The leaves soaked up every last bit of gross, cold, wet winter...woops.
Each bag of leaves we made weighed close to 100 lbs. We raked up mud and worms (we saved them-don't worry) we soaked our clothes. But, we did it. I even trimmed those hedges- without electricity! Our yard is done. We are productive members of society again. And Miles knows to never trust me when I offer him breakfast again.
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