Leaping into Spring - The Local Buzz

A tongue-in-cheek piece from our Editor.

Spring and Easter are special, bringing new life to nature and Easter eggs to the garden. Maybe we will even find the one that was unaccounted for last year! I doubt it, I think it was surreptitiously eaten – a bit like at pick-your-own strawberries. I have never understood why they don’t weigh the people before and after they go in, as well as the baskets!

I can’t wait to see the cranes flying in formation overhead, making their fabulous noise and signalling that warmer times are on their way. The blossom will be blooming, turning sleepy orchards into beautiful new prune and cherry bearing trees. As well as opening the pool, pruning the roses and planting up pretty pots, it’s also the time for my best friend, the mower, to come out to play.

If you’ve read any of my other Just Droning pages you will know I have a love-hate relationship with garden tools. Now the mower will truly be out in force as the grass will be doing its best to turn my lawn into a set for the next Tarzan adventure! From March to July, we can almost see the grass reaching up to the sky, only having had a trim a few seconds earlier.

About 18 months ago I had a near death experience with my “agricultural quality” ride-on when my long cardigan became trapped in the blades and dragged me down. I flung myself off, breaking my leg in the process and then had to literally chew my way out of the cardigan to free myself from the carnage. It’s a true story I promise. As I sat there, squashed between the mower and the fence, entangled in the brambles that had caused the problem in the first place, the neighbouring farmer went off for his lunch on his chuntering tractor and didn’t see or hear me. I live in the middle of nowhere, and it was around two hours before I was heard yelling for assistance. Help eventually arrived complete with a TV controller as the poor lady was in such a panic that she thought it was the phone!

Anyhow I survived and now every trip with the mower is treated like a military operation. Bottle of water, check. No cardigan or scarf, check. Mobile phone, check. Sturdy knife, check. I kid you not! My children have tried to ban me from using it but the grass grows so fast! I need a live-in mowing person.

Speaking of which, I have a live in frog, one of those cute, tiny bright green ones. He (I guess) is thrown out every time I see him but every day he finds a way back in. Is it frogs or toads that turn into princes? I have a similar thing going on with a toad down at the pool. When I can find the courage, maybe I will kiss them both!

Until next time….

First published in the March/April 2019 issue of The Local Buzz

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