We live in a neighborhood in which people take pride in their lawns, which is obviously not the worst thing in the world.  We could live in a dump.

Our neighbor across the street is out on his lawnmower every 4 days, double mowing his lawn so it has those fancy criss-cross lines in it.  We compliment his lawn.  He says “I’m just putzin’.”  Well.  If that’s putzing… We’re assholes.

Our neighbors to the north have a bagger and mow trails into a part of their 5 acres so that their 5 children (all boys – our new favorite entertainment… more on them later) can ride their 4-wheelers and dirt bikes along the paths.  

Our neighbors to the south have beautiful landscaping with no weeds and so many pretty shrubs and flowers.  Their son is the one we’ve contracted to mow our lawn for the summer.

And then there’s us.  New homeowners.  Moved into our house at the end of last summer with no thoughts of a lawnmower or weed-wacker, let alone a bagger.  (I should say that I didn’t think about a lawnmower – my logical husband did.)  We have a ton of landscaping that weeds seem to love, a huge garden that we are have no idea what to do with, and a lawn that grows faster than you can even SAY lawnmower.  We are the assholes that have a huge beautiful lawn without the means NOR the knowledge to take care of it.

Last week, Peter and I were both traveling for work, him in Houston, me in Canada.  We were both gone for only 3 days, so we didn’t even have anyone pick up our mail.  On Friday when we got home from work, I told Peter that he should ask our contracted lawnmower to mow the lawn.  He said ok.

On Saturday, we were gone all morning and for the first part of the afternoon.  As we were pulling up our road around 3, Peter said, “Hey, I think our lawn was mowed!”  Great news!  And then we drove closer.  I said, “Hey, I think our neighbor weed-wacked around the landscape!”  What a fantastic day!

And then we pulled up our driveway.

Sara: … I don’t think Neighbor Kid did this.  The lawn is cut… diagonally.

Peter:  Oh my God.  Did Neighbor Across The Street mow our lawn?

When we got into the house, I looked out back.  There weren’t any lawn cuttings in our lawn. And it was DEFINITELY mowed diagonally.  I went back out to the garage.

Sara:  Umm, Pete?  I don’t think Neighbor Kid did this…

Pete: Oh my GAWD this is SO EMBARRASSING.  I THINK NEIGHBOR ACROSS THE STREET MOWED OUR LAWN.  

Sara: How are we going to find out who mowed our lawn?  This is SO embarrassing.

Pete: I’m not sure if someone did this because they’re nice and they think we’re nice, or if it’s a passive aggressive sign to get our shit together and keep our lawn mowed.

Sara:  I’m SOOOOO embarrassed.

So then we stood on our patio and stared at our freshly mowed lawn a little bit longer.  And then we started laughing because we were so embarrassed and in disbelief that our lawn was not only mowed, but also bagged.  

A little bit later, our neighbors to the south were outside, so we went over to their house.  Separating our yards is a mini creek, and it rained quite a bit at the end of last week, so the creek was basically a raging river.  

What the creek actually looks like:

We were talking to our neighbors and Peter had the brilliant idea of hopping across the river to see their garden.  I was like ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh now I’M going to have to hop across this river, and I have the grace of a newborn calf.  So, Peter jumped.  And obviously made it just fine.

Of course that’s not what happened.

Peter roto-tilling the garden.