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| A Very Unhappy Buddy |
Since it was such a beautiful day Buddy and I
went out to tackle the problem. Buddy
lasted about twenty minutes before his enthusiastic greeting of a female jogger
resulted in his incarceration for the remainder of the effort. I also learned why my system wasn’t
working. The hurricane had blown with
such force that dozens of small sticks were literally embedded in the front
yard and these served as an anchor for the squatting leaves.
There was way too much to handle with the
lawn mower so I filled up our rubbish bin three times and wheeled it to the
back yard each time. The wind was
blowing (it is November) so raking the leaves was an adventure in and of itself. I finally reduced the leaf population to
where I could drop the big one – the riding lawn mower. I was able to clear off the lawn and
re-establish the wind tunnel clearance zones for the remainder of leaves. I think I may have looked a little silly chasing down the single leaves that escaped the initial mowing. My neighbor downwind must have been observing
because he was out on his mower shortly thereafter to ensure the leaves would
keep moving through his yard.
I decided to wait for the snow blower
conversion on the advice of my life coach – I don’t think she was ready for the
swearing that accompanies this annual event.
She said it was more important to give Buddy a bath – he was getting a
little funky. Buddy hates baths almost
as much as I hate putting the snow blower together so it was kind of
appropriate. My wife who hates
temperatures below 70 even worse than either of our dreaded activities stated
that I had to use warm water for the bath.
While this was a very sympathetic stance, the
logistics were not that easy. I told her
I could hook up the hose the washer but this would mean an open door and
attendant cold wind into the house. She vetoed
that plan outright and directed I carry a large bucket of warm water
outside. Buddy wasn’t sure what was
going on but as soon as I removed his collar he knew what was going down and
firmly planted his feet to prevent going outside. It actually worked out okay despite Buddy’s characteristic
lack of enthusiasm for the activity. He
displayed his disdain later in the day by taking up residence on my wife’s
favorite couch. I think he thought since he was so clean he was authorized. I’m sure the neighbors
heard the wall shaking scream from my wife that followed that – I don’t think he’ll do it
again.
The rest of the day was fairly lazy. I even watched a couple of the really
entertaining college football games.
Several of the remaining undefeated teams had challenging games. I love
college sports because the athletes are not jaded the way they become as
professionals and there is real emotion in the littlest of things. Notre Dame won a game they should have lost –
I think there may be something to the notion that some higher power might have
moved their opponent’s seemingly easy field goal wide right.
The most entertaining game of the day was
between two top five teams including the number one team in the nation. While they were obviously the better team
throughout most of the game Alabama was on the losing end in the waning moments
of the game. They hadn’t been able to muster any kind of offense in the second
half. LSU then decided to change up
their defensive scheme and Alabama promptly marched down the field for a
winning touchdown. Sometimes coaches are
a little too clever, by half. The best
part of the game was my wife actually volunteering to watch part of the game
with me. She was drawn in by the pageant
surrounding a big college game and it was a lot of fun explaining the rules of American
football to her for the eight hundred and seventy-first time.
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| Front Yard Before |
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| Front Yard After - Wind Tunnel Re-established |
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| Buddy Inspecting the Back Yard |
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