April 10, 2006

No ‘fences!

My husband is addicted to lawn care. This isn’t a sudden realization. I’ve known this since the first summer of “The War on Dandelions” in 2003, a year after we bought our house. He hand-pulled every little yellow weed he could see and swore the whole time.

Doug is trying to keep up with the Joneses, the Mitchell’s & the Smith’s, too. We have some very anal retentive neighbors who spend countless hours and many dollars on having the best lawns. The guy next door mows 3 times a week. The guy across the street mows every other day and then washes his lawn mower. It’s ridiculous.

Last summer, Doug was sitting on the deck watching our underground sprinkler system at work. He had a Busch Light in one hand and my Pampered Chef kitchen timer in the other.

“What are you timing?” I asked.

He turned to me and with a mischeivious look in his eye he said “The neighbors run their sprinklers for a half hour each set, twice a day, I timed it.”

It was like he had discovered top secret information and could not wait to document his findings. I now understand the phrase, “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”

Speaking of fences… That’s right, Doug wants to put up a fence around our .87 acre property. He finally decided it’s time to close off the traffic on the busy road behind our house and to allow Murphy to run free from a leash this summer.

We live in a little suburb that has a bike path in our back yard. It’s part of the Green Circle Trail, a 26.5 mile biking & walking path that goes around ours and neighboring cities.

Due to the increased use of the path, we’re getting a fence, so that Murphy can’t play Alpha Pup and scare the running shoes off these joggers & bikers.

Sadly, it’s not a beautiful, top notch, fence that I’ll line with exquisite beds of flowers. It’s a plain, boring, metal fence that he will install himself. I can only imagine the hours of cussing and ranting Doug will do, trying to do this alone. I can almost hear him yelling for me to “hold this, get that, do this, and do that”.

As for gardening, this year Doug has decided to add raspberries, peanuts, broccoli & leaf lettuce to our little plot. Last year we had carrots, too many tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, onions and squash. I almost laughed when he said peanuts. But he’s adamant on making this work. I’m elated about the raspberries, but I doubt they’ll bloom this year. I guess we’ll have to wait and see!

Posted by Dana @ 12:48 pm • The Hubs