My Yardwork Angels.

Saturday morning, Mary called and asked if I was going to be home all day. She wanted to bring her nieces, Rena (14) and Sam (12) and mow my yard. (She wanted to give the girls a lesson in charity.) They brought a walk-behind mower and a walk-behind weed-eater. I think she hadn't believed me when I said how high the grass was. They spent several hours here, weed-eating, mowing, raking. Rena got one of my mowers going (I can't pull hard enough.) and I mowed a few circuits of the fenced area behind the house. Mary and her husband came back Sunday afternoon with that weed-eater and a riding mower. They finished the front and side yards, including raking up more than half of it. Mary also started my mower again, and I finished mowing the fenced in area, and raked some of it into windrows, to make it easier to pick up. When they left, they took the wheel from my wheelbarrow to fix the tire.

On Monday, I picked up a lot of the grass-cuttings from the fenced area and raked the rest into windrows. I now have a couple of haystacks in two of the quadrants of my 'herb garden'. They should rot down pretty well over the winter. I also picked up a couple of mop-buckets of black walnuts and dumped them where I always do for the squirrels to take. I think Mary will come out again sometime and take walnuts. Or maybe I'll take some to her.

Tuesday morning, I heard a mower running - my neighbor's friend was mowing in my back yard with the neighbor's riding mower, which has been on the blink most of the summer. When I went out later, the mower was sitting in the middle of the yard - it had broken again. However, when I got home several hours later, the mower was beside Rob's house, and my back yard was completely mowed.

Now for the last two days, Rob and his friend have been cutting brush from the bank on my side of our shared driveway. They did this about two years ago, but some things (like wild olives) grow VERY fast. Now Rob has enough fuel in his back yard for several bonfires.