Mow, Mow, Mow My Yard

Lately, when I mow my yard, I have several friends that like to join me. Oh, they don’t actually mow, they come to visit. The first is a bothersome fly. It buzzes at my ears, then at my face. Swatting it away doesn’t seem to do any good, because within minutes, it’s back again, circling my head. It worries me that it is looking for a vacation home in my mouth or nose. That is something that I really don’t want to happen.

I thought my next mowing friends have abandoned me. In the early months, I sorely missed them. They are a family of barn swallows. Hearing my mower beginning to lop off the tops of the grass in my yard, they swoop from their nesting area to catch the insects that my mowing chases from the lawn. Gracefully they swoop, gathering the bugs to feed themselves and their family. I keep hoping that they will catch and eat the fly that bugs me, but no such luck yet. Do barn swallows swallow flies?

A much larger visitor came through my yard yesterday. The back part of my property is very moist. Either a cow or a horse meandered across that area and left about 3 inch impressions in the wet ground. It happens about once a year and it takes me several sessions of mowing to repair the divots.

Today I mowed my elderly neighbors’ lawn as well. I hate to see my lawn neat and theirs wild and untended. As I started to mow, their grandson came to visit them and began to cut the hard to reach areas with a push mower. I was glad to see him. I am like the cowboys of the old west. “If it can’t be done from the saddle, I don’t like to do it.” Now I’m not as daring or as romantic as a cowboy, but sitting in the saddle is more my style.