Palmetto’s First Haircut

I mowed our palmetto instant turf for the first time. Look how awesome it looks! Who knew I’d be this obsessed with lawn? It’s so spongy and soft and lush. And green! I love it! 

Question: other than spending hours cutting the edges with secateurs, what’s the best way to neaten up the edges around the shed and garden beds?

And you can’t possibly have a post about the backyard without a photo of Lloyd. I thought I’d sit back and admire our lawn for a bit on a recliner chair that my sister bought me. Lloyd decided the extra height was just what he needed to get the best vantage point for his fly catching. No flies died. 

Genetic Predisposition To Putting Holes In Pipes?

This is my punishment for being lazy. We’ve got an area near our side path which we have grand plans for one day (those plans are not yet known but they will be grand). But until those grand plans are realised, this area is an ugly haven for weeds, which occasionally get cut back and rarely get pulled out. Lazy, I know, but they just grow back and the area is ugly with or without them. I was mowing the lawn today and had the ingenious idea of mowing the weeds back. I think you can see where this is going. I knew there was a reason I’d never done this before, but that reason was buried amongst the weeds and therefore escaped my mind. There’s a bloody water pipe there! And that bloody water pipe is sitting on top of the dirt! Put a nice gash in it, I did! I casually turned off the lawn mower and stood there for a second watching the water gush out, thinking “now what?” My brain slowly reminded me that I should turn the water off, but I think I was so shocked by what I had done and how stupid I was that I couldn’t for the life of me remember how to turn the water off. I got my phone out ready to call Adam, but stopped. “Come on Jen, think! How do you turn the water off? The gas is over there, where’s the bloody water?” I gave up and called Adam who was wonderful (as always) and didn’t make me feel stupid at all! He’s even going to spare me the embarrassment (and expense) of calling a plumber and fix the pipe himself when he gets home tonight. I cleared the weeds away and cleaned the dirt away from the pipe so I could take some photos and measurements for Adam. Luckily it’s only a short length of pipe (930mm) so shouldn’t be too bad to fix. I gave myself a nice gash when I tried to brush the dirt away from the mangled hole in the pipe with my bare hands – so many stupid things in such a short space of time!! But I blame my genetics for all of this. If there’s a pipe to hit, my Dad will hit it every time. It goes beyond just bad luck – his shovel/pick/nail/screw is attracted to pipes like a magnet to iron. Grandpa was the same, and my brother is steadily showing the same affliction. And now, it seems, I have the dreaded pipe destroying gene too! Thanks Dad!