This is the life, I think…..
And so It Goes
My wife and I spent our first 60+ years in southern California. As I have said before I spent many years trying to escape the hordes of people that kept coming to join us. I remember the times in the 50′s when we wanted to have the largest population in the country. Well be careful of what you wish for. You just may get it, and we did. California now has the largest population in the United States. After my time in Israel…. I wanted to live in a rural place. But, I finally figured out that no matter how far I moved the people would fill everything. One morning my wife sat up in bed and said, “that we could move to Washington State, and find what we wanted. We could also sell our incredibly over priced home and buy a home there and have no mortgage. Well I just broke into a big smile. The other plus was that our oldest was living in Seattle so we could see her and our grandchildren. Well we aren’t crazy, OK my wife is not crazy. She suggested that we find a place where we could be close enough to visit and take them out for the day, but we didn’t want full time babysitting duty.
She flew up here and found a home in a place that was very rural and was on an island. We have three neighbors that we can see, and that is it. Our nearest neighbor goes to Arizona for the winter and on our other side is one of the wells for the mutual water company. No one is there except trees and this small well. Well this was perfect. Laws have been passed to make sure that the density of the island couldn’t grow. Well I thought I was in heaven. In fact I am in heaven.
We had over and acre of property on the side of a hill. No mortgage and a lovely back yard for the dogs to play in. We have a large lawn in front of the house. I am guessing that the evergreen, in the middle of the lawn is at least 100 feet tall. On the side of the house we have what we refer to as the back forty. This is another lawn leading into the black berry plants and then the evergreens.
When we first got here I tried to mow the lawns with a manual lawn mower. Well, I soon found that I couldn’t handle pushing it up and down the hill. We talked it over and finally bought our driving mower. I spent a number of years driving tractors and I loved this. Once a week I would go out and mow the front lawn and the two lawns on the side of the drive way. The next day I would mow the back yard. On the third day I would mow the back forty.
Now I only needed to do this from spring to winter. I enjoyed it. One day this winter my wife said that since we lived in a forest, we should let the grass grow as tall as it wanted to. I didn’t think it was a great idea but I listen to my wife because, she is usually right. Well about three months ago it started to grow and grow and grow. When the dogs went into the back yard they would disappear. I figured that in another few months it would be taller then we are. We had another conversation and this time I stuck to my guns.
What I was soon to learn was, that the mower couldn’t handle grass that high. So we began the great weed whacking. This is much harder then mowing and we both took turns and finally we had it to a level that the mower could handle. I went right out and began mowing the front lawn. It went pretty well, except for the times it stalled because it wasn’t made to work so hard. I keep dreaming of my Caterpillar D-10, for those of you that don’t know about tractors this is a tractor with tracks that is about the size of a tank. Very few things could stop it. Strangely enough my wife said no. In fact she kept saying: No, No, and No! I finally caught on and went back to work mowing. It was hard work and in the mean time the back 40 kept growing as did the back yard. Two weeks later we began the great whacking. Frankly it was hard work and it took a whole week to finish it. Next came the mowing but, before I could start, it began to rain. When the grass is wet it just bends over and the mowing is just a waste of time. This went on for two weeks. That is what it does in the great northwest. I said that if I could get two days of sun I could go out and mow. Well last week I started in the back yard. I got about 75% of it done before the mower said no more. Then the rain came up again. So we waited until today. It seemed that we needed to do more whacking. So a few days ago I went out and continued to whack away. Today I took the mower out and began to mow the back yard. The mower wasn’t happy but it finally got the job done. There was a lot of stalling when the engine felt that it was being asked to work too hard. Ellen came out and she whacked and I mowed. Finally it was done. Well I was so excited that I made another typical Howie mistake. I went and began to mow the front lawn. That wasn’t bad so I decided to finish the two side lawns; again it was not too bad. Then I decided, and I have no idea why, that I would try the back forty. Now we hadn’t whacked and so when I started it didn’t go too well. The mower kept stalling. I think it said a few nasty things. Well here I am, three hours later. I still have a lot of the back forty to do. I suppose that I will have to get out the weed whacker and do what I should have done in the first place.
I love living here. It is really beautiful. It is a green as you can imagine. This is known as the Evergreen State. There are plants every where. I feel that I can stretch out and not hit anyone except an occasional deer, raccoon, possum, or bear. Not too many bears on the island. I tried to get the deer to eat the lawn but all the want to ear are our flowers, apples and pears. They just won’t buy into my plan. I was not dumb enough to approach the black bears. We also have squirrels and as many birds as you can imagine but they are only interested in what I feed them.
I thought I would just check in.
And So It Goes, howie
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