Spring!

Spring has arrived to Northeast Nevada. Ah, the sound of children's laughter and smell of barbecue over the still brown landscape. We might see some flowers in another few weeks, if it doesn't snow. Then early June we can put in our vegetable gardens when the last frost may or may not have come, and hope for a 90 day growing season. 

But, first things first: brown or not, the lawn must be mowed. Here in the high desert, we sometimes have problems growing things. The grass won't grow and the weeds and sagebrush won't stop. Yes, I said sagebrush. You know how some people have trees that sprout in their yards where they aren't wanted? We have that too, only our trees are called sagebrush, because a) there are no trees and b) the sagebrush is as tall as small trees. Anyhow, the sagebrush seems to just grow wherever it wants to, including our yard. When we first moved in, we had a guy mow the overgrown weeds in the small pasture behind our house. He asked if he should mow the sagebrush also. We weren't sure, and the guy reassured us that it would grow back in just a few years. I don't think I believed him then, but now there are sagebrush coming up in our front lawn.

Last weekend Wayne took the manly walk out to the garage to start the mower. I heard no motor start, and Wayne was back a few minutes later. I lost him somewhere around pull-start and carburetor, but the bottom line was the mower was not working. We considered taking it to the lawn mower place to get it fixed. You know the place - every town has one. You know it's the lawn mower place because there are between 50 and 100 old lawn mowers piled out front. Since our mower was pretty worn out anyway, today we decided to go to town and buy one. 

Well you know Wayne. When it comes to buying things he only considers the biggest and best. I cringed as we walked through the lawn mower isle. Wayne started eyeing something called a lawn tractor and I reminded him we had previously agreed on getting something 'cheap'. I then took the wifely duty of holding the baby and waiting for him to compare torque and blades, when something strange happened. Wayne walked over to a mower and said, "Awesome! This is totally what I'm getting!" I immediately looked at the price tag, which was....hmm, that can't be right. I then looked at the lawn mower, if you could call it that. Remember the old-fashioned mowers? They don't run on gas, you just push it and the blade spins and cuts grass? I have a vague memory of Grandpa Cloyd using one when I was little, and we thought it was THE coolest thing we had ever seen. Well, Home Depot had a brand new old-fashioned mower, and Wayne was in love. His eyes sparkled just like the time he came home with a shiny, fast motorcycle. And it was the cheapest mower in the store!

Now some pictures....(if you scroll through the many Penelope pictures you will be rewarded at the end with some pictures of Wayne and his new mower!)

 Penelope continues to be enthralled with the kitties:

 She pulls up to see her on the couch...

 ....until the Ruby moves away.

 Then crawls to her on the floor.

 Penelope & Ruby circled the living room several times that day!

 Ruby would flick her tail, usually evading Penelope's pterodactyl grasp.

 Penelope made it through the day scratch-free!

 Now, to demonstrate Penelope's 'standing up on my knees' move:

 And finally....Wayne mowing!

 Penelope and I but on bonnets, worked on a quilt, and sipped homemade lemonade....oh, wait, this is 2012 and we wore hats and sunglasses, sat on our quilt and sipped Starbucks!

 I would have gotten some pretty cute pictures, had Penelope removed her hands from her mouth for any length of time.

 The brown lawn, the eccentric lawn guy and baby-girl playing.

 We put Penelope's high chair out on the porch so we can eat out there. She mostly eats her seat belt. Occasionally we give her some food.

 The cool kids: