Another green sacrifice (phase one)

Because of the three weeks of recent rains and flooding, our lawn has overgrown to the point that it was shin-high in places, and utterly out of control, so late this morning I finally went around and picked up all the windfall pecan twigs I could find, then excavated the lawn mower from the shed and set out to work.

I had to mow in two stages, because today’s hot and muggy, and about two-thirds of the way through I got to feeling overheated and queasy, so I went indoors, lay down for a while, and drank a pint or so of water.  That helped.

Finally I screwed up my will, accepted the lawn was not going to get done by thinking Good Thoughts at it, and finished the job.  (By this point it was two o’clock, as humid as ever, and even hotter than before.)  I still need to dig out the Weed Eater™ and trim the edges and the tree bases, but that can wait until much later today, or tomorrow, or even later in the week.

My mood wasn’t helped by having to put on a long-sleeved T-shirt, jeans, boots, and a respirator to survive the Mowing Experience.  I need the long sleeves, jeans, and boots because we’re overrun with Asian tiger mosquitoes (Aedes albopictus), whose bites are much more painful and itchy than your standard-issue Anopheles or Culex, and which are active during the day, unlike the others which mainly come out in the evening.  The damned mosquitoes breed in the giant bamboo hedge that runs across the back of our lot, a Legacy-from-Hell courtesy of a previous owner.  I am going to poison it all out one day and replant with something else, but for right now it provides a very useful visual screen from our neighbors across the back lot line, and we have to suffer with the mosquitoes.

The respirator gets in because my lungs are so badly wrecked that the dust and pollen mowing stirs up send me into a spell of asthma unless I wear it, and never mind how the rubber mask makes rivulets of sweat run down into my beard, or how the rubber part smells like the cat just peed in it (which it didn’t, as we don’t have pets).

And now it’s about three o’clock, I’m so nasty from yardwork that I’m utterly unfit for company, and as soon as T’s through giving M her bath, I’m going to have a long, cool shower.

Conditions at 14:51:

Temp 91° F. (33° C.), dew point 72° F. (22° C.), humidity 53%, heat index 96° F. (36° C.), wind SSE at 10 mph, barometer 30.06”↓, sky mostly clear, visibility 10 miles.