lawn work
Sunday I had a childhood dream fulfilled, but better than I ever expected.
I do not like yard work. However my parents forced me to mow the lawn when I was a kid (they used the method of paying me to do it). As I walked slowly, slowly pushing the giant fume spewing machine, full of thoughts about whatever fantastic great sci-fi novel I was reading during my long breaks, I swore that I'd force my kids to mow as soon as they were tall enough.
Despite Bill Brown's advice that kids can be harnessed like sled dogs to a standard Sear's reel mower, I had resigned myself to a few more years of maintaining the lawn to my aesthetically low but environmentally medium standards. Sunday, however, motivated by angst over the end of school and a touch of boredom, my daughter found the idea of helping me a pleasant one. She even found the confidence to listen to and follow my advice on how to use a reel mower to cut very tall grass. It was so much fun as we ran forward and backed up and ran forward. Such an unsought for pleasure, and so much nicer than my 30 year old thought of forced mowing. Of course, her interest didn't hold out until we finished, but hey, neither did mine. But our bit of lawn that the neighbors can see is no longer quite bad enough to call the county over.