Yesterday I cut the lawn early in the morning to avoid the ninety degree temperatures we've been enduring. The air was already humid. The grass was still wet. Fog had still been steaming off the ground and hanging in the trees when I'd hauled the trash down to the road.

I was taught that you never mow wet grass, but there wasn't much there. It just needed a trim. A few spindly weeds had sprouted and some clover had stuck white blossoms an inch above the surrounding landscape. The one small patch of light green grass -- different from the mongrel mix everywhere else -- had grown a bit. Had that grass survived from the original lawn, or was it the remains of a re-seeding attempt?

I followed my usual route -- the side, the front, the back -- avoiding the numerous rocks which a pry bar had revealed to be the tips of "ice bergs" too large to warrant any attempt at removal.

As always I took care not to mow over any ferns. If in the future the far back is nothing but a mass of ferns it will suit me. I also swerved at avoid a large toadstool near the edge of the yard. I'm not sure why. Something told me not to chop it up.

This afternoon, glancing out the back window I saw a squirrel sitting on the trimmed lawn chewing at something large which it had grasped in its paws. The squirrel had harvested the toadstool. It nibbled happily on the delicacy. I couldn't help but consider that lawn mowing a job well done.