To Mow the Grass
Door Preston Losack
Dit verhaal vind je in de kranten Stellingwerf, Nieuwe Ooststellingwerver en Nieuwsblad van Noordoost Fryslân
Op de mat in diverse regio’s
My dad confesses in our biweekly phone call why he hasn’t made progress with audiobooks, ‘well, my lawnmower keeps breaking down, and I listen while I mow.’
Moving from the suburbs to retiring on a farm is hard work. The city doesn’t cut the fields for you, with its multi-ton machinery. You have to buy your own equipment that works for you and your new land.
‘Oh no, not again,’ I say. ‘Is it that damned brace? I thought you got the guy to order a spare one last time.’
‘No,’ he says, exasperated. ‘Not the brace this time. The drive chain. We’ve got these Sweet Gum Trees that clog up the motor from underneath, so it’s all jammed up. So I bring it to the guy —’
Dad and ‘the guy’ should be on a first name basis by now, but we just call him ‘the guy.’ I’m a little surprised my stepmom isn’t even a bit suspicious of his frequent trips to the lawn mower repair man.
‘… and he says the part’s on backorder, so I haven’t had my lawnmower for a week or two.’
I know what that means. ‘Ah, shit. So then that grass gets tall.’
There’s a kind of grass that grows all over Texas, Bahia grass. If you don’t keep it short, it will produce these stalks with seed pods on the ends of them. I used to find those Bahia grass stalks around the edges of play equipment at recess and pretend it was wheat or barley. Although, frankly, I didn’t know what edible grains actually looked like.
Apparently, if you let them, those stalks will grow immensely tall, tick-harboringly dense, and mower-repellingly strong. The tornado of blades underneath, as sharp as they might be, have a hard time cutting through a whole smashed bunch of those stalks—more ‘bludgeoning’ than ‘snipping.’ If the Bahia grass gets too tall, Dad will have to mow his whole twenty-five acres two, maybe three times over just to get back to normal.
I say, ‘can’t you just let it grow, cut it and use it for hay or something? Texans have been raising livestock since before lawnmowers — surely that grass is good for something.’
‘No,’ he responds, ‘you need a whole different kind of setup for that. It’s a whole deal. You have to use this tractor fitting that’s almost like a bunch of tiny little scissors that snip the grass at the base. But then you have to let it sit and then bundle and bail it, blah blah. It’s just not worth it. I could buy a hundred years’ worth of hay before it’s worth getting that kind of tractor fitting.’
Fair enough. When you buy a tractor, apparently, you get a choice of three ‘free’ fittings, anything from post hole diggers to a bucket. One such fitting is this hay’s barber (my term). I say, ‘so it’s better to put that tractor to use moving hay instead?’
‘Well, to be honest, I didn’t get a hay fork attachment for it either. But Doug does, so I just get him to deliver hay every now and then.’ (Doug’s a farm boy who grew up to be a farm man and a farm dad. For my small-town-raised, big-city-grown, and middle-of-nowhere-retired Dad, Doug’s also become a handy farm neighbor.)
I ask, ‘why didn’t you get the mowing attachment for your tractor?’
‘Because we have so many trees, it would be a huge pain in the ass. You really need something that can get in there easily, so a riding lawnmower is actually perfect. The tractor really isn’t nimble enough. I’d still have to go back over those trees if I want the grass to be cut right.’
‘Not if your lawnmower keeps breaking.’
‘No doubt, but —’
I cut him off. ‘I mean, Dad, it sounds to me like you don’t have the right lawn mower and should just get a new one.’
He groans. ‘Yeah, you’re not the first one to say that. But it is a good one, a very good one. It cost a lot of money, and it’s one of the best commercial grade ones on the market.
‘You see, there are little bumps and holes around the trees. I learned how to do it now, but in the beginning I would go to hit around the trees, and it would send one side slamming into the ground or bend one side of the lawn mower and snap that brace. That’s why it kept breaking. The first several times it was under warranty, but then Husqvarna called to say no other person in the world’s brace breaks as much as mine does, so they won’t cover it anymore. Turns out it’s the way I mow.’
Of course it’s logical to assume that maybe Husqvarna’s commercial grade mower was designed for commercial grade landscaping too, and that Dad should find a riding lawnmower that doesn’t break — be it the brace, the drive chain, or any of the other mystery moving parts. This being about the 10th time I hear him looking with half-dread at the Bahia grass growing tall, I begin to realize: while my father isn’t necessarily a fan of owning a broken-down lawn mower, I think he likes the drama of it all. Now that he’s sitting comfortable in his retirement, it gives him things to do, toys to play with.
I still don’t understand why the tractor won’t work. ‘Well, come on, Dad, your tractor’s not that big, is it? It’s just a little ol’ thing, right?’
‘Not that little. No, no. It’s not small. There was one bigger, a 40 — the people who sold it to me suggested I get that one but I went for the slightly smaller model. I probably should’ve gotten it, but — I mean — it’s not that little.’ He pauses.
I tease, ‘Sounds like it’s not little.’
‘It’s not. I mean, it’s bigger than Doug’s.’ I laugh. What a great line.
My dying pitch at reason: ‘Can’t you just do the big parts and hack that Bahia grass with your tractor and then finish it off with the lawnmower?’
‘Not really, no,’ he says.
There’s a slight pause where I again realize what my dad’s life is like now. A former police sergeant, he’s not playing a cat-and-mouse game with criminals, dealing with the justice system, or raising a kid. He’s watching the deer come to meet him for coffee, and he watches them come back at sunset after dinner. The blue jays fight with woodpeckers and cardinals over birdseed out the back window, and the Mockingbirds call from the front.
I think, ‘what’s really a waste of time?’ He’s loving having time to waste. He’s at ease in his newfound home — with guests or alone — even enjoys fixing its imperfections.
He goes on, ‘Plus, I mean — I like mowing the grass anyway.’
Preston Losack
Preston Losack (Dallas, 1991) woonde vroeger in een klooster. Hij vindt het sublieme in het alledaagse en wil echte verbinding inspireren. Als ‘klassiek dichter’ koestert hij de traditie, maar maakt hij poëzie toegankelijker – daarom startte hij Preston’s Poetry Podcast. Hij houdt van het ont-snobben van onderwerpen zoals typemachines, klassieke muziek en schermsport. Zijn poëtische reis begon in 2021 met een oorlogsprotest gedicht op een servet en leidde tot landelijke publicaties en optredens. Als Dictieland-resident co-creëerde hij 500 jaar op de zeebodem. Zijn werk verscheen onder andere in De Moanne en Leeuwarder Courant, en hij is nu bezig met een episch debuut-gedicht.
Fotograaf: Rasmus Kongsgaard