Wednesday March 17 2010

Steve is not a gardener. He claims that it takes too much time and he would rather be playing golf. When we were both working it was easy to justify having someone to cut the lawn and keep things tidy. When we left the UK and went to Manila, no one ever did their own gardens and so the trend has continued to the present day.

We loved our garden in Princeton, I pottered in it, Steve dug the occasional hole and when Charles bumped first his father’s car and then my car into the garage wall and needed to earn money to pay for the damage, he did so by digging lots of holes so that I could plant lots of shrubs.

When we first saw the Princeton house before buying it, there was snow on the ground. I asked the then owner what was in the garden and the reply was “grass and plants”. This was true to a degree but in reality, the grass was coarse, under fertilized and full of weeds. The “plants” were two climbing akebias and a clematis. The “garden” consisted mainly of Brunswick Shale, a dark red stone that is very prevalent in our part of New Jersey, and clay. In very nearly wept when I saw the reality of the situation. Digging was very hard. We had always wanted to have a pool in the garden and but it took 1 year to construct, ran 50 % over budget and took 96 stick of dynamite to blast the hole. You can see the problem. Now though, our garden is beginning to look lovely, and I do love it. Last summer, a friend commented to me that he had “garden envy”. I can’t tell you how much those words meant to me.

But back to the present. Today our new gardener came to cut the grass. Our new house here in Sao Paulo has a patch of grass that is “L” shaped and at most 45 feet by 45 feet, but it took him literally all day to mow the grass. Actually “mowing” isn’t the word I would use. He used a strimmer to go round and cut it. I was amazed that he could be so inefficient when even a small mower would yield quicker results. Then of course the problem was that he had to pick up all the grass clippings. So after strimming, he took some time off for lunch and then spent the best part of the afternoon raking. Now here is where it gets clever. He has to work in tandem with the pool boy because the slightest breeze and these grass clippings blow into the water. I sat and watched in amazement at the two of them making an absolute meal out of doing the grass. They obviously have nothing better to do with their time.

But then I thought about Jesus, who used to cut the grass in Manila. There we had very broad leaf grass that is common in the tropics. He used to use a pair of hand shears. Nothing as mechanical even as a strimmer. In fact, Steve reminded me that sometimes he would even use scissors. Imagine cutting grass with an overgrown pair of scissors.

Of course, in America we had a couple of guys with “sit-on” mowers. In 45 minutes they could cut an acre of grass, strim the edges and blow all the leaves away with one of those petrol driven blowers that they would strap to their backs. $ 45 very well spent thank you.

In Istanbul we lived in an apartment, in Tel Aviv we did have a company that came in every week and in Sweden it was so cold the grass hardly grew at all so about 4 or 5 times during the summer was all we needed. In Paris we had a fabulous guy although Steve was non to impressed when he broke the mower during the first week of service. He got it fixed but for the price of a new mower.

But, as long as it isn’t me or Steve cutting the grass, I don’t mind what method they use or how long they take.