Frankly, I'd Rather Be in the Yard

I can't believe it is Monday. Mac and I have been in the yard for three days, it seems more like seven. We have been mowing, sowing, and towing...four acres of grass is a lot of grass...we do it in sections and take turns riding the mower. I spent a couple of days sowing Canterbury Bell seeds and now I'll be praying for them to come up. The little riding mower decided that it won't go anywhere anymore till we buy it a new battery, so the big mower had to give it a tow. Then Sunday we put in the little water feature. Mac gave me this little pond set up for Mother's Day last year. We had it installed yesterday. One year. It broke our previous dilly dallying record of six months. I shall explain.


Mama had a lovely Koi pond at the back door. Her Koi were fifteen years old and very tame. They didn't even mind the cats...they would take food from your hand. The sound of water is so very relaxing and I longed for it at home. I had my aquariums and I loved my small fish but I wanted that soothing sound outside, as well. So, Mama bought us a complete pond outfit for our 25th Wedding Anniversary. It was delivered by Sam, the UPS Man and Mac put this huge box in the garage. It was only supposed to be for a week or so. It arrived in September, a month early. Mama was hoping the sounds of rushing water would be a done deal by October 15th. Month after month I would walk into the garage, see the box sitting there and think to myself, we're going to get that pond up and running soon. I nagged Mac as only I can nag but it did no good. Lets see, some of the responses I got from him were as follows: "it's too cold"; "the ground is frozen"; "I don't own a jackhammer"; and finally the classic "I'll do it tomorrow."


Of course tomorrow failed to arrive and so I took matters into my own hands one fine April morning. It was a Saturday as I recall. I had arisen and poured my cup of coffee and was taking it on the porch. I looked over to the side yard and envisioned how my pond would look when I had it finished. Taking my cup of Joe with me, I wandered in the garage, saw the big white box and lugged it out into the drive. I opened it and removed the directions and walked back to the porch to read them. (Contrary to what My Darling Mac tells you, I do not throw out directions to everything as a matter of principle.) So I began to read and I noticed that Mac had his coffee and was joining me. "Whatcha got there?" he mumbled, trying to feign an interest he certainly did not feel at this hour of the morning. "It's about the koi pond...I'm going to put it in today, " I said proudly. He snorted, by all that's holy the man snorted and then he started laughing. Out loud. "No no," was my response. "This is a very simple procedure. It says so right here in these directions, " I declared, waving them under his nose. He smiled knowingly, patted me on my shoulder and said " I'll get to it next weekend, I promise." I assured him that I was quite certain I could do this, and leaving him with his coffee, walked back into the garage and picked up a can of white spray paint. I took the measuring tape and marked out 10 feet and sprayed an x. Then I measured out 12 feet in the other direction and sprayed another x. Then I roughly sprayed the outline of a ginormous lima bean and set to with a will. I took the half moon diggy thingy and cut into the soil at the outline I had made. Mac wandered over to see what I was doing. I was standing on the half moon jumping up and down on it to force it into the dirt. Mac clucked with disgust and taking the diggy thingy from me, finished what I had begun in record time, telling me this was as far as he was going, I was on my own. I smiled prettily at him and told him "fine". I went into the garage and retrieved the little tiller Mac used in the garden. He narrowed his eyes and asked what I thought I was doing. "I'm going to dig my pond with this tiller, " I replied. "You should use the big tiller, that tiller is for maintaining, not digging." I frowned, nodded and put the little tiller aside. I went back into the garage and wrestled the big tiller out of its confines rolling it out to the construction site. "Do you think you could crank it for me?" I asked him. How could he say no? So he cranked it, then he said "let me get this hole started for you." So I let him get the hole started and then of course he had to shovel out the dirt and then he had to lay out the liner and by the time he knew what had happened I had wandered back over to where he stood four feet deep in a hole with the water hose in my hand. And that's how I constructed our first Koi Pond. Any resemblance between me and Tom Sawyer and a certain fence are spot on.