Tender Thursday *37

Screw Autumn. I grew up in New Jersey. They don’t call it the Garden State for nothing. Drop a single seed on the ground and you get a forest.

During my teenage years, I spent spring and summer mowing lawns and trimming hedges. I spent the fall raking leaves. And winter brought the joy of shoveling snow. By hand. No snow-blower. And before and after school, shoveling coal into our furnace until dear ol’ dad finally sprang for conversion to oil heat. Too late for me. I was already buff as hell. For spending money, my friends and I did yardwork for neighbors and nearby stores. I have to say this though – all that work kept us busy and out of trouble, our pockets full of money, and our bodies lean and fit. Yumm.

Nowadays, I’ll take my Arizona desert, thank you. We have 2 seasons here, summer, and Christmas Day. Natural desert landscaping (cactus and colored gravel) is virtually maintenance free. Every 3 months, I take a few minutes to spray my dozen weeds with Round Up and that’s yard work for the season. Once a year, I hire an illegal alien for a few bucks to trim it all and rake.