The First Time I Cut The Grass

Yesterday was an incredibly beautiful day here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The sun was out, it was around 74 degrees and  after too many weeks of rain and flooding it felt amazing. I spent the morning catching up z's until around 10:30AM when I finally decided to throw on jeans and a tee and walk over to Common Ground for an iced latte. On my stroll from coffee to the Fulton Street Farmers Market I was lucky enough to run into a few friends I don't see often enough and I was feeling content with my decision to stick around this little big city. By the time Jonathan and I were walking down the aisles of the market I was feeling caffeinated motivation  and decided it was as good of a day as any to snag some herbs and get a start on my spring gardening.

Two hours later, (Jonathan had long since disappeared to "get some work done"), all of my herbs were planted and the dandelions were (mostly) removed from the remnants of last summer's garden. I had a little bit of that "just accomplished something" high that I crave and I started feeling like I could take on the world, or at least another project that involved getting a tan. That's when I decided the grass needed to be cut. I knew no one could possibly take this garden seriously with these ridiculous tufts of grass that, only in the guise of darkness, could it possibly be mistaken for a lawn.

Just to set the scene a little bit for you, I live in a house with two other people, Emily and Lee. Lee is a forester with the Friends of Grand Rapids Parks and is also a certified arborist so, if your like me, you might think that our surrounding foliage would be immaculate, but what I've found is that just because you WORK with plants it doesn't mean you want to spend all your PERSONAL time doing the same thing. I should have assumed this based on my personal desire to avoid eye contact with computers from 6pm-8am Monday through Friday. This isn't actually a big deal though because our lawn is approximately 15ft x 8ft so it's not that hard to maintain. (I'm literally sitting on the porch right now so I just eye-balled it for that estimate. Realistically, if I were typing this in my bedroom instead I probably would have estimated around 5ft x 5ft but that feels too dramatic since I'm actually LOOKING at it and it's obvious I could lay down either direction without hitting payment and I'm over 5ft fall... I digress.) SO it's no big deal that I take care of the front yard because I actually find the act of gardening enjoyable, and possibly even a tad therapeutic.ASIDE from cutting the lawn.

I primarily don't enjoy taking care of the grass because I don't have a lawn mower. I don't have a lawn mower because I have never had a lawn big enough to need one. I've also never used a lawnmower so I've never been drawn to get one. I wouldn't know where to begin. Thankfully my friend Brad owns his own landscaping company, Pro Cut Lawn Care, and he has been nice enough over the past few years to drive his mower over my tiny lawns like twice a summer and that's done the trick! However yesterday I was simply too antsy to call in a favor.

So, I grabbed some scissors. I started with notion of only cutting the REALLY long grass (remember, they are mostly 'tufts') and then I went all diva hairstylist on those little blades and suddently I was doing a re-vamped version of "The Dougie" that involved tennis shoes and kitchen shears. A little over an hour later, there was a new 'do on Fuller Ave.

All I have to say for myself is, I've seen worse. I mean, the lawn looks horrible, but it still looks better than it did. We literally had grass that was 18inches tall. Now those areas are closer to 5 inches.

I got a voicemail from my mentee, Mariah (10), that I listened to when I finally got off my stained green knees and I could hear the concern in her voice: "Hey Miss Lizzie, it's Mariah. I just drove by your house with my mom. We didn't stop. It looked like you were, um, maybe, gardening? Anyway, uh, call me back." The tone in her voice makes me almost 100% sure that her mom saw my moves. And probably the scissors. And now I'm not sure when I'll be seeing Mariah next.

So I still haven't technically "mowed a lawn", BUT! I have learned, and succeeded in, cutting the grass. And let it be known, the tan wasn't worth it. The looks of the drivers and neighbors walking by though? They might have been.