Mulching, Mowing and Memories

My dad with my son, Steve

Mowing and mulching,

as soon as the leaves fell, my dad would be out there picking them up.

This picture was taken in 1964. I was in Jr High School then. There's my dad, late Fall, cold enough for jackets and his fur flapped hat, continuing to mow the lawn.

There is a certain satisfaction that comes from doing yard work. Often I wonder at the young couples around our community today with huge houses and small yards, the service pulled curbside with their lawn equipment taking care of their mowing, their trimming, their mulching, all the yard clean up. My husband and I are out there, twice their ages, doing our own yard work because that is what we learned and although it sometimes seems endless, there is a sense of pride when it is finally accomplished. When the boys were little, they helped, sometimes they watched, sometimes they grumbled at having to do the mowing or the raking, but I watch them now, with their own homes, after working full days at their jobs, spending weekends taking care of their yards too.

It would have made my dad proud to see them working in their yards. My dad was no less busy than today's young people. He always had time for his family, worked hard as a banker all day, volunteered in his community and church and somehow the yard work was always done. As soon as the wind would blow more leaves to the ground in the Fall, my dad would be out there raking, mowing, mulching and dragging them on tarps across into the woods. My dad loved his yard. The lawn was always mowed, the leaves were always cleaned up, the grass was always fertilized, the bushes were trimmed, the gutters were cleaned. He filled the bird feeders, covered his own pool for the winter, put up the storm windows before the double paned, triple glazed, energy efficient windows of today.There wasn't anything that he didn't do himself. But what I remember most, at this time of year, when the leaves begin to fall steadily, persistantly to the ground, is my dad, with his mower, back and forth over the lawn, his fur flapped hat and flannel lined shirt warming him from Fall's chilly winds.