It's all in the neighborhood. The shot to the right is of some early morning fishermen near the Highway 58 bridge close to Emerald Isle, NC. They're in a pretty good neighborhood for finding fish.
I just seem to be in good neighborhoods for not having to mow my yard. I've written about our crew of middle aged mowers on the hill before in "The First Mowing of the Year" and "The Last Mowing," but I haven't mentioned the good luck I've had recently in not having to mow our two yards.
In early September, with some partners we closed on a second home near Swansboro, NC. That meant that I picked up a second yard which needed mowing not long after closing. Since we didn't have a lawn mower in Swansboro yet, we arranged for a lawn service to mow the yard. We were back in Roanoke when they were scheduled to do the first mowing. I was surprised to get a phone call from them. They said something like, "Did you get someone else to mow your yard?" They had found the yard already mowed when they went out to mow it the first time.
I immediately called the real estate agent and asked if he knew who had mowed the yard. He said they had been trying to figure out themselves how the yard got mowed. We were down a couple of weeks later when I was sure that I would find the yard needing another mowing. It looked like it had just been mowed. It was then that I decided there must be a lawn fairy in the bushes.
The next morning I saw my new neighbor outside. It didn't take him long to confess that he instead of a lawn fairy was mowing our yard. Though he didn't say it, I think he was so glad to have the construction done next to him that mowing seemed like a small price to pay for having a neat yard next door.
You don't find many neighbors like our new neighbor. He immediately offered to finish out the mowing season for us since we didn't have a lawn mower at the house yet. True to form he mowed it again before our next trip down. Now the centipede lawns in our subdivision on the coast have gone dormant until next spring so I'm completely off the hook.
Of course the lawn in Roanoke is a different story. I did contract to have it mowed a couple of times and managed to mow a couple of times between the rain storms the last time we were up on the mountain. As I wrote in the "The mowing countdown," my Canadian psyche has a problem with December mowing which is often required in Roanoke. Even in Roanoke things usually slow down in October and November, but this year the grass has grown like spring. It's been a challenge for the middle aged mowers especially considering how much we've all been traveling.
This morning I got pictures in my email from my across the street neighbors of the new "Lawn Doctor" service that was mowing our yard. It wasn't exactly what you might think. It was another neighbor mowing my yard. Once again I'm off the hook for a while.
All I can say is that I really know how to pick neighbors. I've lived in lots of spots, but none of them before Roanoke and Swansboro have ever had neighbors who would mow my yard. As I've often said, neighbors make the neighborhood.
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