The Lawn, The Weed Hound, and Crocodile Dundee

Mike mowed the lawn this afternoon, a chore we both have been actively ignoring for quite some time. Mike really hates doing it because, when he was a kid, he ran a summer business where he would mow the lawns of practically every neighbor on his street.  He got paid well, but it pretty well burnt him out.  Also, our yard is huge and our lawnmower is old and temperamental.  I've tried several times to do it myself, especially in the summer when Mike is gone 14-hours a day, but it is not a self-propelled mower and I just don't have the strength to push it through the jungle we call home.  We realized that we absolutely had to get to it this past weekend when the kids successfully played hide-and-seek by crouching down in the long grass.  Yeah, we're those neighbors.

Now that the grass is short, the weeds are very evident.  They look all scraggly where there should be smooth blades of grass.  Fortunately, I have this handy lawn tool called the Weed Hound.  It's essentially a claw at the end of a long metal pole, but it works great!  You stick the claw in the center of the weed, step on the little handle to push it into the ground, give a little twist, and it pulls the whole weed out by the roots.  Viola!  You can check the Weed Hound out in action here.  It's a really great tool. 

Now this is a knife!

I'm not paid to tell you how great the Weed Hound is, although maybe I should be.  I just remember back to the days when I was a kid.  My parents would weed the garden using a knife so big that it would make Crocodile Dundee run in the other direction.  We would spend countless hours cutting out weeds from the ground and many more trying to soothe our blistered hands.  During breaks, Dad would teach us how to throw the knife so that it lands sticking straight out of the ground like it does in movies.  This is something that is harder to accomplish than you would think.  But I became quite good at it and I am certain that if things get desperate enough, I can join the circus with a knife throwing act.  In retrospect, teaching a ten-year-old how to throw a knife seems like a pretty dangerous practice, but in our family, we like to promote ethnic stereotypes, so as a good Italian, I know my way around a knife.  Anyhow, the Weed Hound makes quick work of the weeds, and I'm thankful I don't have to cut them out of the ground with a knife anymore.

Beware the
steaming divot!

The downside to the Weed Hound is that it leaves a little hole.  Now, this isn't really a big deal if you have a few weeds here or there.  But I've quickly discovered that we have more weeds than actual grass.  As I remove the weeds, it's starting to look like we have gophers.  There are so many divots that I'm considering having a party where my guests will wear fancy hats and replace the holes with sod like they do at Polo Tournaments.  I don't actually know if they really do that.  Everything I know about Polo I learned from that one scene in Pretty Woman.

So, the lawn is mowed, the weeds are in the process of being removed, and we now look more like responsible home owners.  Just don't look to closely at the paint job on our garage door.  We haven't gotten to that yet...