The Empire Strikes Back

Did you know that dandelion is a corruption of the French "dent de lion", meaning lion's tooth, which refers to the coarsely-toothed leaves? I read that on Wikipedia - and shamelessly plagiarized it just now - so it must be true. 'Tis the season to be pulling dandelions out of the lawn. It's gotten to where I know the full lifecycle of the dandelion, its favorite hiding places, its anatomy's weaknesses that provide the best way to pop them out. Pulling weeds can be strangely, mildly addictive or at least meditative after a long day at work. I can't help but admire the simple and ruthless efficiency with which the dandelion slowly and surely takes over a lawn. Maybe having some dandelion wine would help me welcome our new overlords.

A New Hope

We recently invested in this Toro self-propelled lawn mower. Now we can't believe that we used to sling around the human-propelled kind. It's terrific on our hilly backyard - it feels like a horse that's chomping at the bit to go at it. All we do now is guide it around and it does the rest. My back doesn't ache when I'm done. I almost look forward to mowing the lawn (OK, OK everyone already knows I enjoy it).