>A Friendly Reminder
>It’s spring. Bees are buzzing. Flowers are blooming. Grass is growing. And growing. And growing. In my yard.
Okay, so technically, this is not me. Or my yard. But it might as well be. We have a bunch of green stuff in it commonly referred to as grass and every spring, we have the same problem. It just sort of gets longer. Our neighbors deal with this mysterious phenomenon by getting out these loud machines they keep in their garages called lawnmowers. We’ve got one of them, too, only there’s a problem. My husband doesn’t seem to like to use it.
And so our lot begins to resemble a homestead straight out of Little House on the Prairie. It’s the talk of the town, not to mention the bane of the Homeowner’s Association. Some of you men out there are probably thinking, “It’s just grass,” but really, it’s become an issue. Amber Alerts have been issued after small children coming over to play got lost in our grass. Stray cattle have shown up to graze in our front yard.
Golfers have plodded through uninvited, searching for missing balls. Last year, a farmer built a maze in our grass and charged admission to wander through it. Snakes nest in our front yard, along with rats, ducks, and at least one pride of lions.
As you can imagine, I don’t like all of this activity in my front yard. It makes it difficult to go out and get the mail. I wish my husband would take fifteen minutes to cut our grass, but each time I’ve gently reminded him, he’s claimed I’m ‘nagging’ him. And while I am many things, a nag is not one of them.
So I’m left wondering how to let my husband know that it’s time to mow our yard. In fact, it’s past time. Hmmmm. Think, think, think…
>Take his jazzy pants (or whatever they are called). Hide them in the long grass. Tell him the only way to find them is to mow the lawn. And if you’re really lucky, they will get chewed up by the mower; 2 birds with one stone!
>I have this problem too. Only in our yard, only the weeds grow. But since it’s mostly weeds, we also have a tiny pasture out there. If you find a way to get your husband to cut it, let me know. I’ll try it!
>Tell him you’ll meet him out there after the kids have been put to bed for a night of passion. But only if the lawn is short enough for you to be able to put a blanket down.Then again, if your teenagers get wind of this strategy they’ll disable the lawnmower permanently.
>I will send my husband to you. We have about 6 acres of yard he mows. He is rather strange, he likes to mow. I think it has something to do with getting away from us! heh. Of course the horses take care of about 2 of those acres so…..
>Hmmm. I have heard of people getting goats to groom their yards lately. Perhaps hinting that one could replace him in the gardening department?
>My dad used to give me my allowance only after I mowed the lawn (or shoveled the drive, depending on the season).Maybe you should tell him you’re going to spend his allowance on new shoes for Punky to replace the ones he permitted to get soiled in the long grass, mud, and poo in the yard. And suggest that regular mowing also reveals/destroys piles of poo and will prevent the need for any further fancy-shoe-expenditures.And scene.
>Wahl…ya could dress up a 6′ mannequin in the motif of the Grim Reaper, sitting in the driver’s seat of a John Deere wheat harvester, and park it out front…or anytime you venture to the mailbox, dress up for a safari, and carry a Weatherby .303; when he asks, “what gibts?”, you could say it’s for protection from the lion pride that’s lurking in the jungle out front…nuthin’ naggy ’bout that. The muttering of “here, kitty kitty kitty” as you step out the door might be considered a tad baiting, though…Now, if I lived in the neighborhood, I’d volunteer to cut your jungle regularly; but heckydarnpoo, I doesn’t.
>You could pay one of those healthy teenage daughters of yours. 😉
>My husband has the same type of problem. But, all I have to do is threaten to go out and mow the law myself, and that will usually motivate him to get up and do it – because he can’t stand the thought of my potentially messing up the grass because I wouldn’t do it right. 🙂
>You crack me up! Every. Day. (Believe me, I need it!)Maybe he is too distracted by the sick bath toy. You never know.BarbaraPS- I am not a blogger and while I have a Name/I am URL-less(I don’t think I do, do I?) I do not like to be anonymous. Help for the helpless?
>It was a great day in our home a few years ago when Angst was old enough to mow the yard. We pay him $10, which I think is very reasonable since he is basically riding around on a small tractor listening to his iPod for an hour. We also have 2 enormous guinea pigs that can clear an eight square foot section of grass in less than a day.
>We were at Lowes a few days ago, and it hit us. We are building a house and getting out of the apt. Oh God, one of us will have to cut the grass. Maybe I can bribe one of our apt maintenance men to do it.
>Pull the lawnmower out of the garage and get ready to start mowing. Pretend to try and start it so hubby hears it but do not start it. Call to hubby for help saying you are not able to get it started. Then once he gets it started be sure to have some other problem(s) with the mower. Hubby will again need to come out to help. By that time he’ll just give up and say “let me do it”.Note: You must appear as if you genuinely want to try and cut the lawn. Beads of perspiration on the forehead will help. When he comes to help make sure you’re genuinely apologetic. (i.e. “I’m sorry hon,do you mind just helping me get this thing started” Wow, I get what hard work this is)And no..I haven’t done this…I’m just, er, assuming it will work.
>Lindsay,I’m allergic to grass, and perhaps manual labor.It’s worth it to fork over the $25 a week to have it done by someone else. Ty Mathes, of Mathes Lawn Care does ours. He is out of Fairview so he can’t overcharge you for gas for travel.
>Everyone needs a hot lawn boy to offer ice cold lemonade to. Tell your hubs it’s high time you had one of those to call your own and see what happens.I used to live with three other girls and we always enjoyed watching our lawn boy mow our lawn shirtless every week. Ah, those were the days.
>I agree with Darth Doc – hire someone and take the money from his own personal stash. There are usually teenagers that will do it for pretty cheap.I had this same issue, but after I hired someone – hubby was happy – I was happy with a pretty lawn – I was not a nag and the world was good. (our person is way less than $25 a week. I think we are about $60 a month for weekly service and bush trimming and stuff. However, our yard is quite small.)
>Our pastor’s wife said she would go for a walk, come home and casually mention to her husband that their place looked a bit like a rental home. Worked for her, and worked for me too! (The only problem is that you’re sort of casting aspersions on renters, which we all were sometime in our lives!)
>All good ideas. I’m hoping this blog post does the trick… Let’s hope he reads it SOON.
>My mom solved this problem with my Dad years ago. After nagging him got her nowhere she told my Dad she needed a check to pay a bill. She used the check to hire a landscape service for the rest of the summer.
>Hmmmm Maybe you could hire a teenager that lives in your neighborhood. Just have him come over on a Saturday and mow his little heart out. When your hubby asks you WTH?? you can just say, in your sweetest wife voice, that you realized it was becoming an issue so you went ahead and took care of it. 🙂 Then smile your brightest colgate smile and ask him if he’d like some coffee. heeheeheedawn
>Grass cutting is MINE and my husband better not think twice about taking it away! I was a little afraid the first few times I tried it since our yard is on a rather steep scale and our mower is a beast in order to make the haul. But give me my iPod (with some Michael Franti or Dave Matthews) and a cold beer and I am good to go. But then, I also am rather snobbish about my flowers and garden as well…. It’s funny that we have one of the prettiest yards around yet I have spent very little money on any of the stuff in it other than some vegetable or herb seeds here and there. My secret…I get most of it from idiots that decide to “re-landscape” and instead of “re-planting” their already established (and need I say, more valuable) plants and trees they toss them and buy new. Bwahahaha….it’s really insane and blows my mind that people will toss a $400 established tree and replace it with $40 one because it’s “new”.
>I never thought this would work, but….A few weeks ago, I totally freaked out on my husband about the yard, its pretty embarrassing even if it is the least of the bad yards on our street. A few days later he started coming home and working on the yard every couple of evenings. Apparently the freak out worked? I wish I could remember what I said….I’d do it more often…..
>Do it yourself! It will go along with your diet and you can do it during nap time.
>Me? Mow? Shahright. I’ve got enough to do as it is- a girl has to draw the line somewhere.I’d hire a landscaper, but then he’ll retaliate by announcing that we no longer have enough money to go on date nights. The first thing he said when he got home tonight was, “I haven’t mowed the lawn yet because I was waiting for it to stop raining.” Honey, it stopped raining LAST FRIDAY. To be continued…
>set it on fire
>When you figure it out, let me know, wouldja? And yeah, I realize that the easy answer is, “Do it yourself,” but I’ve got enough of THAT going on, thankyouverymuch!
>Tell him the News 2’s Andy Cordan will be stopping by to interview you for a “That’s Messed Up” segment about husbands who refuse to mow their lawns. And mention how cute you think Cordan is.I’d offer more suggestions but as a non-sports-watching Barry Manilow listener who likes Hepburn/Tracy movies, my man card is on the brink of being revoked at any given moment, so I have to be careful not to push it. Sorry.(BTW, Channel 2, you know what’s messed up? That this arm-flailing, microphone-eating doofus still has a job as a “journalist.”. Well, someone had to say it. I feel better, anyway.)
>Here’s a strategy that my best friend still has luck with 27 years after the wedding:”What’s that, dear? You don’t want to mow the lawn? Well, that’s fine, but just remember, “NO MOW JOB MEANS NO BLOW JOB!!!” He’s usually got that mower flying across the lawn in about 2 seconds flat.
>Okay, I just spit my coffee out. Thanks for that. 😀
>Do what all my neighbors did when their hubbys didn’t get around to mowing quickly enough, hire someone. My 14 year old son made a killing mowing yards in the neighborhood.
>I say you hire a hot landscaper and then tell hubs not to worry about mowing the lawn – you’ve got it all under control 😉
>Hire a landscaping service. It’s really not that expensive and ours does a great job. We still take care of flowers and weeding. They just mow and do spring clean up and the leaves. OK, we’re lazy. Not really, but we both work and have 3 kids – there’s no time!! (It doesn’t take 15 minutes).
>LAWN STILL UNMOWED. Getting desperate.
>We have weeds in our front lawn that could rival your grass overgrowth. One way I got Homer off his keister was when he discovered that he could use a mobile blowtorch to burn them off – a very effective tactic for Vegas landscaping which is largely rock-based. Boy loves fire. Fire good. Weeds bad.We keep our backyard trim with a couple grass-eating tortoises. If he won’t mow, head to your local pet store and invest in a nice African breed. They’ll get pretty big in a couple of years and you’ll have to winter them in your basement, but you’ll never have to mow again. Just think, you can recoup your investment by charging the neighbors’ kids for rides!
>UPDATE: Lawn is now mowed. And we will say no more about it. Vive le blog!
>See…I’m like justmylife’s husband…i LOVE to mow the lawn…shovel the driveway…for me…it’s exercise and i love to do it (which is amazing because my ass is still rather large). Glad to hear the lawn is mowed. Want to share how you got him to do it??
>Well, it definitely helps that he reads my blog every day. 😀
>When my husband is slow getting to the grass, I gently remind him it needs to be cut. When that doesn’t work I resort to nagging. When that doesn’t work, I just cut it myself in a fit of anger. I actually kind of enjoy it once I get going. It’s good exercise, a good way to get out some aggression and a nice break from the kiddos. But, personally, I like the idea of enlisting your healthy teenagers to do it. 😉
>Good for you! A man needs to know his place.