Nothing major has been happening these past three days, the first part of April but it feels like I've got a lot done. Yesterday I mowed the whole yard for the first time of the year. Since I am out of shape, aerobically, I took about 50 minutes to get the job done.
I cut it lower than I normally do but the same length that I cut it last November. I had good news and bad news at the same time by the time I finished mowing.
The good news was that I did not hear a loud sound of the mower blade finding the 5" steel hinge pin somewhere in the yard. That not only saved me a blade or other possible damage to myself if that pin would have shot out the back of the mower at ground level.
The bad news was that the mower did not find the 5" steel hinge pin so it is still in the yard some where. I did a close inspection of all the front yard last November. The plastic discharge guard flew off while I was mowing and the hinge pin that held it to the mower was gone. A mystery about where it ended up.
The yard will look better as it rains more this spring but I've never seen it in worse shape after a winter as I have this year. A lot of mole damage this year and they never were in the front yard until this year.
I am going to have to rebuild the edging bricks. I'll have to dig out some of the flower bed, straighten the bricks and then support them on the outside edge with additional dirt. One of many things to do this summer.
Our walk this morning was one of the slowest walks by both hounds I have had in a while. There were no intense focused tracking by Sadie, there were no attempts at escapes by Stella, she didn't lag behind and neither hound ran anywhere ... it was a leisurely stroll on Monday morning.
Another exciting thing was clearing the yard of all the small limbs that had blown down the other night. I found around ten of them on the roof and took them down. Nothing of any size but perfect to plug the gutters.
With a 75% chance or rain this afternoon, nothing more was planned outside. The temperatures are perfect although Heidi seems to be waiting for the 70° mark before she spends anytime outside. She did spend some time with us outside yesterday afternoon as I sat trying to recover from 50 minutes of exercise.
Today was just too quiet for some reason. All the hounds slept most of the time before their lunch was served. Sadie didn't beg for walks and Stella did not even howl for food.
By the time we took the after lunch break, the rain was coming from the southwest and looked like it would meet it's 4pm arrival time. Luckily it was sunny in NYC and I was able to watch the Mets and Braves game. Each team had an ex player from my favorite team, the Reds.
For some reason Heidi likes to take the long way to the side yard on the north side of the house. Instead of just walking along the top of the front yard, she likes to walk behind the yews, then climb the steps to the porch, jump off the porch and head to her favorite part of the yard.
Neither Stella nor Sadie was looking to go for a walk. Stella was somewhat confused when she tried to tell me she wanted to go for a ride in the car. She was standing in the old spot where the FJ was parked but she had the wrong car.
Heidi noticed all of the mole hills of dirt I mowed over yesterday. She decided she might have to look at each one to see if they were mowed to ground level.
There is nothing better than scratching your face, eyes and nose on some freshly mowed grass before you do anything.
When Stella didn't get the response she wanted while standing in the other parking spot ... she walked over to the right car to ride in and stood there telling me she wanted to go for a ride. She has sat in the back of the Mini Countryman but has not ridden in it.
Sadie was sure that she heard the words 'go for a ride' but didn't see the FJ sitting in the normal spot.
Here are some more pictures from our morning walk. As you can see, there wasn't much energy this morning and it has turned out to be a pretty slow day.
It's only 2pm and I could take an afternoon siesta pretty easy. Maybe I should set the iPhone alarm for 3:55pm so in case I fall into a deep sleep I'll be woken up before the Reds game at 4pm.
It's certainly rough being retired when baseball season starts. We still have one more college basketball game tonight ... so all is good.
It's officially spring here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.
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