Monday, May 13, 2024

big old storm rolling in - we are in the midst of clearing out broken furniture and getting it on the curb, but the storm is due to last all day and i'm not sure how it will affect the process. in addition i'm tired and don't even like hauling old broken furniture out onto the curb.

but i did finish the mowing, and that was no small feat. my wife was taken in by the no-mow movement, which i intended to read about and give some meaningful commentary on, but instead i'll do that here, since i really don't know what i'm talking about, and it's all personal because of the pain of lugging an undersized electric mower around to three houses doing the best i could to catch every corner. our own house was the worst - the grass in back was higher than the two smaller puppies - but i set the mower on high and it seemed to handle it ok without constnntly stalling. the one spot that got it was in the drivewy where it had been no-mow since the very beginning.

the grass came up rich and lush where we let it and my impression is that all that grass going to seed was good for at least the propagation of more grass if not for the ecosystem in general. In general I would say, why give the bugs and snakes the impression that this will be a wild no-mow territory when you're just going to cut it inevitably anyway? it turns out that bugs and snakes are pretty versatile and when they know you're mowing they're already gone to better jungles. they're pretty good at settling in for a temporary gig bacause their life is like that anyway. so the sum total is, more grass, about the same population of transient bugs & critters, and a generally healthier ecosystem.

but i ended up a little sore and tired from fighting the hard grass resistance to my quiet electric mower. it just wasn't meant for such dense undergrowth. out at the academy house, yard turns into weed on railroad property and i have to decide how far to go with it - i already have some of the railroad land going back to the wild where it came from. in other places it's dense nettles growing over junk, junk that will hurt the mower because i can't even see it when i mow out there. i try to keep the bugs down in most places; mowing helps the birds pick off your average bug nest. but i let that railroad right-of-way protect the snakes and the other critters.

i sit here at noon practically falling asleep while my wife begs for five more minutes to work on dinner before i get in there and work on my own lunch. i'll give her five and maybe ten - she makes good dinners but needs the space to do it - and in the mean time i'll tell you why i might nod off. last night, ten to eleven, the door dash from hell - it was a double order, a wendy's out to the far east side, and sandwiched between the pickup and the delivery, a couple of shakes from steak & shake to a nearby house. in the steak & shake they had the shakes almost made when something happened at the window that required all their attention, and they made me stand there maybe ten or fifteen minutes, with the wendy's order already in my car cooling off. but worse, when i finally got the shakes and took them to the house, the house had its lights on, cats standing there, but nobody answered the bell, nobody answered the phone. it was a "hand it to me" order which meant i didn't feel good just leaving it there. but after another ten minutes what could i do? i think the woman was in bed with someone. that's what the cats were trying to tell me. i left the order. but way over on the east side, the map function could not work on my app and i got lost. it just wouldn't tell me where this apartment was. the poor womoan; she just wanted a wendy's. finally i got it to her. she must have been starving!

ten fifty i rolled home, a long night, but i made my money. now i'm tired and might nod off before i get this furniture moved. and the rain is really rolling in.

it's hard to make it truly interesting. i wish i was more excited about what i'm reading, but it's mostly crap. one is about sailing the waters around scotland's western isles - at least it has a good topic. i'll stick with that one, but only after i have another cup of coffee.

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