so, at 7:55am, i wake up to the god-awful sound of 5, count ’em, 5 high-powered, gas leaf blowers and a friggin wood chipper right outside my bedroom window, blowing my neighbor’s leaves off her tiny yard. the smell of gasoline fumes leaking into my house was nauseating. doesn’t help that there’s a cold drizzle and the air is so heavy and dense that it keeps the fumes from dissipating.
day ruined before it even started. bleh.
Croneswood Art 
6 responses to “life in the ‘burbs”
Ugh, that’s awful. Other people, and their noises and smells, suck sometimes.
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and to make matters worse, i love my neighbor. i’m sure she had no idea what these guys were gonna do when she hired them to do her leaves. talk about overkill.
ahwell, i will wait until the rain stops and my leaves dry, then i’ll take out my trusty rake and quietly rake my leaves into a pile for the compost heap. i am very low tech and really deserve to have a little cottage in the country. *sigh*
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I’m low tech that way too. I have a push mower, a rake and a snow shovel.
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hi there; john from louisiana here. when i got my first real job in the library biz, i moved into a rental where the landlord’s cousin did the lawn service for $50 a month. i believe it was his 6th time cutting my grass when i met him. i got home from work and he was in the back yard, finishing up with his mowing. so, i went inside and grabbed my checkbook. i came outside and found him against the back (hurricane) fence, staring towards the ground. i said hi to him and we exchanged small talk. then he said, ‘i’ve got to get back to my truck and get the weed spray.’ ‘really, what for?’ i asked, obviously not seeing the big picture that is part and parcel with lawn professional types. ‘well, i have to spray that poison ivy you have growing there,’ he replied, pointing to the newborn vine that was struggling to make 2 feet in length against my fence. ‘uh,’ i said, looking for a diplomatic way of putting it, ‘that isn’t poison ivy.’ ‘sure it is,’ said the lawn professional with all the certainty of a judge handing down a sentence. i felt the need to point out the obvious, as helpfully as i could: ‘it can’t be–poison ivy is a 3-leaf plant. that’s some type of wild grape growing there…maybe muscodine.’ mr lawnman laid down the law. ‘no…*that’s* poison ivy. i’ve seen it a million times.’ clearly, this guy had never actually seen poison ivy. so i told him, ‘look, i don’t want you to spray roundup or anything else in my yard, alright?’ ‘ok, it’s your yard,’ the guy said, obviously pissed that he wouldn’t be able to quick draw his death-wand of chemical spray on the botanical miscreants of the townscape. i cut a check to the sulking lawnman and the next weekend, bought a briggs and straton lawnmower.
take home lesson for your neighbor: do your own lawnwork. bonus lesson: rakes are cool.
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john!!!
so good to hear from you. i agree with you completely. i do most of the lawn work here because, 1) i’m cheap, 2) i don’t trust anybody, and 3) i rather enjoy it.
so tell me, ever get any grapes off that vine?
miss you muchly.
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grapes off the vine? nah, takes years and years for muscodine to bear fruit. they sold the rental out from under me after 3 years.
miss y’all also, and hopefully we’ll be visiting i that area in the next year or two.
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