YardWork

So our house has this cute little front yard, with a grid of cement squares bordered by grass. We were relieved at first that there's only the small areas of grass as we figured this would make maintenance easier. Perhaps, we were wrong...

After 3 months of letting the grass grow uninhibited, it got to astronomically tall proportions (see picture at left). We figured we had to do something. We didn't want to buy a big lawnmower, to spend that much money for such little grass to cut. So we found a push power for $60 and hoped for the best.

Well, turns out those things don't really work very well. To be fair, a lot of it probably had to do with the fact that we'd let the grass grow so long. But still, it was not easy cutting the grass, and even then it only cut the stuff in the middle, the long pieces on each edge of each row of grass just lay flat on the ground. Zach had to go back around with the clippers we also bought and trim a lot of it by hand.


Which, of course, turned into a HUGE mess with grass clippings EVERYWHERE. We did the best to try to sweep it all up, but between the concrete hugging the strips of cut grass, and the fact that some of them were a bit wet still from all the rain we've been having, again it was difficult.


This is what we ended up with at the end of it all. There's still pieces of grass all over here and there, but at least it's better. We're thinking that maybe we should just buy a weedwhacker or one of those yard trimmers, and maybe that will be an easier way to cut the grass? Or maybe we just need to do it more often. Everything's so choppy and uneven right now. We're gonna let it "settle" for about a week and then I think we'll have to do it all over again. Perhaps it woulda been easier if we'd just gotten a full lawn and could mow it the regular way, and leave the clippings lying around. I was actually contemplating this morning if we could just rip up all the grass and plant flowers instead... not sure the owner would go for that though.

I have to say, I'm so glad we live on the French side of Switzerland. The German side is so ANAL about cleanliness and maintenance, etc, I think we'd be burned at the stake if we'd move over there.

In other news, we had a great time at dinner last night. Jules got to stay up a bit with us before it was her bedtime. I think it's safe to say that she's completely nuts about me... it's so great! She wanted me to read her one of her bedtime stories. Then she said to me, "Remember when I came over to your house? I was really excited all that week b/c I was gonna get to come to your house." SWOON! Aruna said she'll call me to baby-sit for her in another week or 2. Zach said he wants to come, too... said he could use the practice. ; )