Sprinklers and Smirnoff

I just came in from mowing our yard. Granted, with a rain garden there is less to mow, which is really great. It took like 3 minutes to mow the rain garden side, compared to about 10 or so to mow the other side. This summer in the interest of eco-friendliness we have made some yard-related changes. We created and planted our rain garden, and we bought a manual lawn mower. The second change was mostly due to DH's poor luck with our new and rarely used mower. We bought it new when we moved here about four years ago. For the first year it worked ok, but shortly it developed a revving type sound, that was most annoying and ineffective for lawn mowing. At this point we hired local help in the form of our neighbor boy, and paid him to mow the yard. We figured this was a nice way to keep the neighborhood busy, give him a chance to earn some money (he's 12 or 13 I think), and build some relationships with our neighbors. But this spring DH took the plunge and overnight we acquired a manual mower. I used it for the first time last Friday, and found it to be a very good stress reliever. It was relaxing to be physically active while completing a chore, plus I liked the tangiblity of effecting visual change in our yard. I was inspired by the challenge these mowers present- you must keep up with the lawn- because it won't wait for you to mow it. It'll keep on growing.
So tonight I took the challenge, to mow the yard. This time I mowed all of it- not just half like last time. And after that I watered all my plants, herbs, peppers, flowers, lilies, plumeria, hibiscus, etc. And then I watered myself and that was the best. I hung our sprayer for our hose from an old clothesline pole that is in our backyard creating a fun little sprinkler. Then Genevieve and I ran through it, over and over again. After that childish pursuit I came in and drank some Smirnoff Pomegranate Fusion- and was and adult again. It was delightful, and one of those special things that only summer can afford.