I Fought The Lawn (and the lawn won)

And as all things tend to do, the lousy day worked out. The bill that the client was supposed to pick up was reimbursed, I rested my knee, the solution I was searching for at work presented itself, and the client is very happy with what we gave them last week. So this afternoon, seeing it was a mild and clear day (the clouds bunched around the base of Ranier, the peak visible) and I had put in at least 40 hours already at the job, I came home in daylight.

And it being late February, I mowed the lawn.

(A brief pause here as people in other (read: colder) parts of the country hurl epithets at the computer screen)

Winter is not completely over up here, north of most of the rest of the Continental US, but its as wet as iit usually is, so our lawns get a jump on the rest of country. Plus the fact that a broad expanse of the backyard is a drainfield for the sceptic system (so its already a verdant green coming up around the last of the fall leaves) means that I already have high grass in spots. I pulled out the ancient gas mower and, after a little fiddling, got it running.

So this will be the next, oh, eight months or so, a regular battle with weeds, moss (which I kind of like), and moles. In particularly moles. As the weather warms, they will be more active as well, and the backyard is a minefield of soft sections where they have undermined, like sappers at the castle wall.

And of course, I put my foot into one of those soft sections, and re-wrenched the knee. So I'm just going to sit up and rest it tonight and play Railroad Tycoon 3 for an hour or three.

More later,