Early Ohio Spring

I've been enjoying our early Ohio spring. Right now, I'm sitting in my living room, looking out the window at the blooming magnolia tree in front of my neighbor's house. Some years, this tree blooms early, and then a cold snap comes and turns its heavy pink blooms brown and soggy. This year, though, I think it's safe to be its true floriferous self. My garden is a yellow haze now with daffodils, primrose, and epimedium blooming. Last night, I went to Home Depot for a bag of grass seed, and I came home with that and three pots of mixed flowers and greens: pansies, Johnny-Jump-ups, chives, and alyssum. This is a dangerous time of year for me. I walk into any store with a plant nursery, and I walk out with flowers I simply have no room for. Theoretically, that is. I search and search and find a spot for them, eventually. My overpacked garden has a serious population problem at peak season.

Last night, I mowed the lawn for the very first time this year, and it was a serious workout. I don't have much property, but what I do have is a 1950s reel mower, passed down to me from my father. He bought it from the Montgomery Ward catalog before I was born, and this thing is made to last. It weighs a ton, which is probably why it works so well. New reel mowers tend to be light and just knock long grass over. Not mine. It cuts like a charm. I have found exactly one place in the Cincinnati area that has the machine needed to sharpen the old girl, so every year, I make the fifty-minute trek to drop her off and pick her up. Every year, the guys at the mower shop say the same thing, "wow! That's an old model.". I don't think there've been more than a handful of times over the years when I've mowed my lawn without commentary from neighbors or passersby. I get comments about the age of the mower, about the shade of purple my face has turned from the workout, about how beautifully the thing mows the lawn. One guy came by once and said, deadpan, "you know, they make mowers that run on gas now." Whatever. I love my mower. Until the heat of summer, that is. Right now, I'll just keep enjoying this way-too-early spring.



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