IT’S EASY EXCEPT FOR THE HARD WORK

Recently I had a tree removed from my front yard with the intentions of having my lawn guy come in and fix the lawn for me. But the more I thought of it, the less I liked the idea of someone doing my lawn from the dirt up and so I decided the hard work would do me some good.

Since the roots to the tree spread all over the lawn, the need to rethink the simplicity of redoing the lawn came into play and I decided I needed topsoil to build the level of the lawn a little higher so the roots would not show. A truck comes and dumps enough topsoil to resurface Yankee Stadium.

I look at two huge piles of topsoil, rich and black and high, hours high! What have I done? My smarter half says to run, as far away as possible, to flee the labor and sweat, not to mention the calluses and sore joints that will come with this project.

pretty much what it looked like

Suddenly, I feel like I’m on a stage, my front yard, and the neighbors are wondering what the old guy is up to. There I am, standing on this big mound of dirt, a shovel and a rake in hand, and not too far away, a wheel barrel, waiting for me. The wheel barrel is not to put dirt in, but for me to lie down and rest in after just a few shovels of spreading dirt.

As I climb to the top of the hill, I fully understand what it means when they say: “It’s lonely at the top.” But what I was hearing was: “It’s loony at the top.” Each rake of the dirt as I try to break down the hill makes me wonder if it is too late to run? The mound may be getting smaller, but the callus is indeed growing, quicker than the grass ever will.

Once I commit, I stay true to my word, and call #2 Son who comes along and helps. Finally the day comes when the lawn spreading is done, the blister is healing nicely and all is good, time to buy some fertilizer and seed. Ah, I’m going to the store unsupervised, TLW (The Little Woman) is busy! Be not afraid, Joseph, seed and fertilizer and you are home free. No big deal.

I go to Home Depot and wander into the gardening section, lost and looking like a child on 5^th Avenue looking for his mommy! I see the stacks of what looks like seed and fertilizer and go over and look. The bag says: “Lawn starter” sounds like a great name for seed and so I buy a nice big hefty bag of ‘seed’ and to feed and nourish the lawn, a nice big bag of fertilizer. They together must weight about 100 pounds and some young whippersnapper comes up and asks if I need help. “Nah, I got this!” I say. My forearms are about to fall off from the distance I have to go to the cashier and then to the car.

Arriving home I decide to pull out the spreader and get started on the lawn, I was almost there! Soon, the front yard would be a vast oasis of green and I being too cheap and stubborn, will have my lawn, just after I lay this stuff down. I decide to lay the seed down first and open the bag. Something is wrong! What the hell! I bought fertilizer, couched under another name and now I have to return the other bag and this time get seed. Damned!

I head back to Home Depot and look a little more carefully. It has been years since I bought products of this nature, and now they are all different. Nothing is what it is supposed to say it is! I ask this young lady who is putting out potted plants where the seed is kept, “you know, for growing grass?” The young lady doesn’t speak English and so the ads on the TV are worthless where they tell you to ask one of their many ‘experts’.

Finally this guy comes out and asks if I need help.

“Yeah, where are you keeping the starter grass seed these days?”

“Well, what kind of lawn do you have?”

“I don’t, I need to start one.”

“OK, we have Kentucky blue grass”

“Nah, it needs to be green, otherwise my neighbors will be coming over and asking questions.”

Pointing to a large bag of seeds he says: “Well this is a blend of 4 different types of seed, what is commonly used on Long Island.”

“Ah! Tricky, OK I’ll take it.”

I go home and this time I have seed, real honest to goodness seed. I open the bag and look in. It is colored! They now color seed! It is mixed in with the regular brown looking color: this is a bluish cast to it!

Well folks, I have laid down the grass seed, and the fertilizer, and in this heat I am watering it everyday at 6 am, noon and 6 pm, until one day I will see grass. I will say: “I did this, and I was dumb enough to do it!” I will also say: “I was too cheap to have my lawn guy take care of this project!”

Dumbass!