This has nothing to do with Monkeys, or
perhaps it has, just a little. Read to the end to find out.
It’s that time of year that I’m anxiously
waiting for and also dread. Springtime brings warmer weather, no snow, but also
plenty of work. The yard looks dreadful after a long winter. The thick blanket
of snow that covered the grass has flattened it and the lawn needs to be
raked. The dry, brown grass needs to be removed to make room for the new, green
shoots appearing among the brown grass left over from last year.
Our property is divided from our neighbors’
yards by a ring of willows. Red ones, yellow ones, and Pussy willows. The Pussy
willows have beautiful fluffy little pussies again this year and they look nice
in the vases. There is only a window of about two weeks to pick them while they
are still nice before they grow too long and turn yellow. The other willows
have nothing to offer aside from making a great barrier between properties. The
only problem, and it is a huge problem, every time we have a storm or high
winds the branches break off and get blown across our yard and even the yard of our
neighbor who lives behind us.
I spent the whole day Monday to gather all the dry
branches off the property. I put them into piles and on Tuesday my wife and I moved them onto our garden where they will be burnt. We have to do this every
Spring and every Fall. In Fall there is usually more work, because that’s when
I also cut the trunks and thicker branches that are black, in other words dead.
I couldn’t burn anything because the winds
are blowing too strong right now and the grass is dry. There is the danger of grass-fires.
Yesterday I still managed to rake the grass
and today I spent the day cutting it, therefore removing the old grass and
trimming some of the new green blades of grass. I cut it really short and the lawn looks green.
It was a grueling job. I have about one
acre to cut and that’s a lot of grass. I bagged the grass and loaded the bags
into my van to be taken to the dump where it will be composted. That will
probably happen on Saturday, depending on the weather. However, I can’t just
dump the bags, because they don’t want any plastic bags, only grass, which
means I have to empty the bags. That is usually also a dirty job with all the
grass flying around, depending on the wind. That’s when I wear a breathing mask
and protective glasses. When I’m sitting on my tractor and cutting I’m also
wearing ear protection for the noise. I’m trying to preserve the hearing I
still have left.
In the beginning I never used to wear
protective lenses and many times I got tiny slivers of grass blowing into my
eyes, irritating them. I used to have red eyes for days sometimes. It is
painful and could even cause an infection. There isn’t only grass but also
plenty of fine dust. When I take off my breathing mask the cloth filters are
black from the dust. That stuff would be in my nose and in my lungs. So I’ve
learned to protect my eyes and ears, and my lungs.
A monkey sometimes does learn, and let’s
face it, deep down we still are monkeys. All one has to do is look around at
the people, especially the young people. They see something on TV or read it in
the papers and suddenly everyone does it. It is evident mostly in the fashions.
One guy wears an earring. Next thing you know every guy seems to feel obligated to wear one. It used
to be only homosexuals wore earrings, now that isn’t the case anymore. Maybe it
depends on in which ear a guy wears a ring that distinguishes him from either
being straight or gay, I have no idea and I don’t really care. In fact, I don’t
think much of guys who wear earrings, it looks sissy, not macho at all, but
that is my opinion. What do I know. Some even wear more than one ring in an ear. Usually it’s
the girls. It doesn’t make them look any prettier. Like I said…Monkeys. Monkey
see, Monkey do.
Well, here I went again, talking off the
topic which was cutting grass. Or maybe I didn’t. Some of my neighbors were
also cutting their grass. One person cuts grass everyone else does.
It’s part of the Monkey Syndrome.
To give another example: We had lots of
snow this year and some of my neighbors worried about flooding. One guy used
his snowblower to cut a trench through his property so the water would run into
the ditch as the snow melted. He also shoveled the snow away from the culvert. Then I
saw quite a few people doing the same thing. Some even shoveled the snow away
from their house. My wife suggested I do the same thing. Everyone else is doing it, she said. Well, I didn’t. I
refuse to get caught up in these things. Just because everyone does it, doesn’t
mean I have to. I may have a monkey as my ancestor, but I don’t always have to
act like one. As it turned out, we had a slow melt and had less water sitting
on our property than most other years.All that backbreaking work would have been for nothing. At least this time I didn't give in to the Monkey Syndrome.
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