(no subject)

I've never liked yardwork. I've avoided it all my life, largely because growing up in Texas it's pretty clear that yardwork means working when it's really, really damn hot. My dad used to pay either me or my brother a few bucks to do the yard, and I didn't care enough about the money to do it much. My brother, being somewhat 'money motivated', did but hated it. I recall waking up in my bedroom in San Antonio to the sounds of my brother cursing like a sailor over the sound of a gas-powered mower, usually choking out because my dad had blown off mowing for a few weeks.

When appleang and I had a rented house in Austin, she did the mowing. It was kind of our deal: I'd take care of keeping the house clean, she'd take care of the yard. I've spent most of the intervening years living alone in an apartment, with all the yardwork taken care of my the apartment owners. Now, I own my own house and while I tried to pick a place with a smallish yard, there's still one to maintain. I use a yard service that loree recommended to do the mowing, but they mostly just keep it trimmed back in the flat areas.

Today I spent an hour or two weeding, likely for the first time in my life, and it was exhausting but remarkably cathartic. It helps that the 'heat of the day' around here is still in the 70s, and that I had projects inside I was avoiding. Afterwards I did some weed eating.

Welcome to the life of a homeowner.