This was the picture I saw a couple days ago as I was walking to my motorcycle to ride home. It cracked me up because you normally see big ol Harleys with 100 horsepower engines and crotch rockets that can hit 160 mph in 4th gear. Then here sat this little, tiny, old mini bike with a 4 hp lawn mower engine , rusty sprocket, fading paint and a banana seat. All that was missing was a 4 foot Elvis impersonator in a white polyester suit and big sunglasses. There's something to smile about where ever you are . All we have to do is look around! I've come to the conclusion that if the devil has a green place he likes to retreat to in hell - I suppose even the devil takes a break now and then and wants to sit in a nice lawn chair on a warm ( ok, hot ) grassy hill sometimes - if such a place exists in Hades it must be green with crab grass. I once had a nice, thick st. augustine lawn in my back yard. Then there was the hottest, baddest summer on record in 2011. Even hotter and badder for longer than the summer of 1980. It was worse than the weather that created the dust bowl days in Oklahoma in the thirties that Steinbeck wrote about in The Grapes of Wrath. It dried up lakes. It killed millions of trees and wiped out about a gazillion lawns , mine included. This year it looked like the lawn was making a comeback until I got out the old mower a few weeks ago only to discover that about 90% of what I thought was lawn grass turned out to be crab grass. Sheesh! So I've pulled up (by hand, mind you) every bit of that grass from hell and re seeded with bermuda and hope it all takes hold before the first freeze. So far so good. About half has sprouted and gotten about an inch tall. Hmmmm, I wonder how much green spray paint "Every day life gives us a box.It is up to each person to decide if it's a coffin or a gift!" It's funny how the truth sometimes jumps out at you from the most unexpected places. I had to take Ms Lorna to have blood drawn due to a blood thinner she has to take for the next few weeks as her slightly cracked hip bone heals. This was written on a white board in the hall of the phlebotomist's office . Seeing that written there was a gift in it's self. It seems like every day finds us in a bigger hurry than the day before with twice as much to do and less time to do it. Life in the fast i guess. It was nice having that little reminder today. And I learned a new word! Now if I can just work phlebotomist into a verse of a song . Dear AT&T , every other week or so I get a couple of envelopes in my mail box - the metal one by the front door of my house. A couple of envelopes stuffed with real paper made from real trees that are full of offers to save me money by signing up for U-Verse. Oh, the amazing things I'll be able to watch on 400 plus channels! Iv'e been receiving these offers for a couple years now and honestly don't know how Iv'e been able to resist! Now I'm pretty sure there must be at least a few hundred thousand other folks getting the same envelopes just as often. You know, that's a lot of trees, postage, and postal worker hours to pay for. If you REALLY want to save us some money on U-Verse how about you quit filling our mailboxes full of paper that mostly winds up in the recycle bins and trash cans from sea to shining sea? It's kinda like fishing. Sooner or later if nothing ever bites you pull up the anchor and move to another spot. Move along AT&T - No one biting here. Quit wasting bait. ~ d I should have gone to work for the highway department. Total job security at least around these parts. Not that delivering tens of thousands of Amazon and QVC boxes everyday isn't job security enough. Come to think of it, I guess not having to dodge cars and trucks that are all in a hurry to get somewhere driving and texting and talking on their phones, reading novels, eating bowls of cereal, putting on makeup, using laptops , reaching for something dropped on the floor and a hundred more things I've seen people that are supposed to be driving do isn't so bad after all. Oh, wait. I do dodge those folks every day! (like we all do) It's just in the relative safety of the big Brown Truck vs. standing on the shoulder with a shovel in my hand. Keep those catalogs near by . . . there must be something you need to order. It was 66 degrees the morning of October 2nd when I took this photo of wild Liatris. Whoooohooo! Bring on the cold fronts and cooler weather! This beautiful example of a Texas wild flower is growing on what will soon become the side yard of a new home. Hopefully whoever moves into the house that is about to be built will recognize the beauty of whats been growing on this once Parker County ranch land for eons and not plow it all under to plant St. Augustine grass that takes tens of thousands of gallons of water just to stay alive. It's amazing to see what Mother Nature can do without any irrigation or fertilizers or weed killer or 'help' from us. No laboring once a week for hours behind a lawn mower and weed eater or wondering what to do with all the leftover chemicals stored over the winter. Keep it Simple Relax and Smile. |
AuthorDale Marsh is a story telling, singer/songwriter, picture taking folklectic musician. Archives
May 2015
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