Mowing & More

My parents brought their nice new riding lawn mower over this weekend, and we mowed the etire lawn. We've mowed some parts of it once before, but this is the first time it has all been mowed at the same time. Here's Cary about halfway through: That thing is fast! Since mom & dad got this new mower, they also very generously gave us their old walk-behind mower. It's self-propelled, but I get the feeling that mowing the lawn will take a lot longer than an hour with it. :)

After the mowing was done in the back, Mom & I pulled crab grass. It came in the fill we brought in, so luckily it isn't in the whole yard, just the area right around the house. Even so, there was lot of it, as you can see from the wheelbarrow below.

I'm normally not a stickler for weed-free lawns, but crabgrass is really ugly when it gets big, looking like a starfish or an octopus, with huge thick stalks growing horizontily along the ground before turning upright to produce big seed heads. Of course it is extremely fast-growing, so this happens in a blink of an eye. Naturally, it is also really hard to pull up by hand. The stalks just break off (they remind me of corn suckers) and each one can sprout into a whole new plant. The only way to get them out is to dig them out, roots & all, with a small trowel. Mom shows off a (small) fresh kill, below:
Meanwhile, Cary used the mower to make hay in front of the house. This section of the field just got press-ganged into the lawn! It looks a bit brown and stubbly this morning, but with repeated mowing it should green up and get used to the idea that it's a lawn now.
By the end of the day, after much mowing, raking, and weed whacking, the place really looked great - although of course there is still more raking and mowing and whacking to do, not to mention sweeping the grass clipings off the porch. :)
What we did today produced a huge transformation in the look and feel of our yard. I can really really REALLY see our lawn as a wedding venue now. It's actually going to work! Sweet.