Saturday, August 04, 2007

A Sprinkler to Water the Lawn?

A chain of unlikely, yet necessary, events...

Over the past few weeks, I have really noticed that our lawn is looking a little more brown every day. Mike and I have chatted about needing to water the lawn, but the thought rarely crosses my mind on a daily basis. Lately, our walnut trees have been dripping some seriously sticky substance all over the back yard; this includes on the deck and on my new deck furniture. I don't even really enjoy sitting in the back yard because everything has a sticky film over it. So this morning, I decided to drag all of the chairs to the front yard and clean them off so I might be able to relax on the back deck again. I ran down to the basement to grab a wash rag and noticed the fan sitting in the corner. I have been meaning to get the fan upstairs and get it cleaned up so that we could pull the cooler air from the South side of the house (the dining and living room) to the North side of the house (the office and the bedroom) because sleeping at night and working in the office during the day can get quite warm; especially when the temperature reaches up into the 90's like it did today. So I grabbed the fan and took it upstairs. I left it sitting in the middle of the kitchen while I went in to take a much-needed shower after my bike ride to the tanning salon...

**Side note** So when I was young, my brother and I use to ride our bikes to the swimming pool all the time. The ride was a total of 7 miles. Why do I have a hard time now riding the 2 miles to and from the tanning salon?? I must be getting old or something...

...When I got out of the shower, Mike asks me if I got the fan up for him to wash or for me. I told him it didn't much matter; the both of us could do it. He began taking the fan apart for a much-needed cleaning. I started to run water in the sink and decided that as dirty as that fan was, I really needed to take it outside to wash. So I ran hot water in a bowl then went outside to drag the hose from the side of the house to the front (to the driveway where I was pretty much everything off...including the dogs). So I washed the fan and the chairs with the hose and some nice hot soapy water. I left everything sitting in the sun to dry. As I was standing there, I began to spray water on the lawn. The longer I stood in the hot sun, the more I thought about the small sprinkler we have had since I got the hose holder a couple of years ago. So I went and grabbed the sprinkler and hooked it up. Needless to say, the age of the sprinkler really showed. It wouldn't spin any longer and so it was really just spraying water up into the air in no real order. I grabbed Mike who took a few minutes to see if he could make the silly thing work. No luck. So we sat down and discussed the option of purchasing a new sprinkler and just what type we would buy. This, of course, prompted a visit to our local Lowe's.

**Side Note** If I was a billionaire, I'm fairly certain I would buy one, two, maybe even three of everything that Lowe's & Home Depot has in stock. I would have a blast landscaping my yard, redoing my deck, ripping out my kitchen, repaving the driveway...you get my point...

...While at Lowe's, I mentioned that we needed more wire for the weed trimmer. Unfortunately, our trimmer is old and requires a special kind of wire; which Lowe's does not carry. This prompted a trip to Feldman's which always takes some time because Mike and I really love going to those small-town feed and grain stores. They always have such fun stuff!

**Reminder for Gift-giving** Mike was really eyeing some deep fat fryers that were big enough to do an entire turkey. Mmmmm....Turkey....

...We headed home and I commenced to the watering of the lawn. It's a great sprinkler because it really covers quite a bit of our lawn and you can adjust it so it doesn't spray the house or any other unwanted areas. However, you have to move it from spot to spot. So every hour or so I would go outside, turn off the water, move the sprinkler, and then head back into the house. While all of this is going on, I'm doing laundry and tidying up things a bit (I think to avoid doing homework). After dinner, I was washing up the dishes and noticed that my water just wasn't as hot as it started out to be. I went downstairs and sure enough, the pilot had gone out on the hot water heater. I'm not big on getting down on the floor in my basement or lighting a match and sticking it any where near a gas source so I went to tell Mike...of course, I presented it in such a way that made it sound like I didn't know what I was doing...to get him to do it. He wanted to know if I was having a problem following instructions. So I went down to the basement again and tried to light it on my own. After three failed attempts, I went up and asked for assistance again - this time in more of a "I have no idea" type approach. I told him I would do it but I wanted the "expert" in the matter to come assist. It lit without any trouble...which is odd because normally it takes him 4 or 5 attempts...

So, what do I mean by the title? When I was little, the sprinkler was what we used in hot weather such as today to keep cool since we didn't have air conditioning in our house. We would run through it, under it, around it, and over it for hours. We would take the sprinkler off and use the hose to spray each other or fill buckets with water to douse each other. Now a sprinkler is used to water the lawn. When did I start getting old??

Alright, I need to get some rest. Now that I have watered the lawn, I'm sure I am going to have to mow it. I prefer to mow before the temperature hits 90 so I best finish up and get to bed.

C'ya!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Remember when Quentin had the BIG sprinkler on the hill and we would run with that adn almost break a leg or something. :) Oh the good old days.

KC's #1 Fan said...

Of course! When I said somethign to Ang about getting a sprinkler, her first question was if I was going to run through it! While I didn't intentionally, I did have a couple of times where I 'accidentally' got wet!