Every year the lawn needs mowing by the first week of May. I could set my calendar by it. So yesterday I decided to open up the shed and roust the mower from its six-month long hibernation. I'm always leery when I yank the starter cord. Machines have disappointed me far too frequently. However, one tug and the mower puffed smoke, growled in annoyance, and went back to work.

There's very little grass to deal with. Moss blankets the far back where the yard runs into the woods. The rest of area is covered by a mixed assortment of weeds which can pass for grass when cut. Right now there's a fine crop of violets on display, or at least there was. Perhaps I should have waited until after Mother's Day.

I find lawn mowing about as interesting as shaving my face. Just as I've gradually allowed my beard to keep encroaching to the point there's hardly any place to take a razor to, so I've allowed the moss and ferns to creep out of the woods and reduce my outdoors trimming.

When I was growing up my family's yard was large. Too large for an easily bored teenager to endure cutting. Oh the Sisyphusian torment of trudging across that hellish sward to the other side, only to have to turn around and go back the other way again, and again, and again! To break the monotony I used to vary the back-and-forth pattern. My favorite variation was the inward, death spiral. I liked watching the job steadily contract as I circled. Towards the end it sometimes felt like the ground was circling me and the lawn did look rather peculiar until the grass grew enough to cover the mower tracks.