You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
Dirt.
I am covered in it.
I’m exfoliating with tundra.
I’m wearing an aboriginal mask of dried grass.
I look like Al Jolson if he were hosting the Lawn and Garden Channel.
I’m in the back yard toiling on a Sunday.
This is America.
As Joe Walsh once said; “I’m picking up the dog doo, hoping it’s hard.”
It’s Tennessee and that means it’s tea kettle hot.
It’s 83 degrees and the humidity is like a Chinese Laundromat.
It’s hot like the inside of a pro wrestlers under arm.
I feel like a worn out ham steak broiling in the noon day sun.
I’ve got my shirt off and it’s not a pretty sight.
I’m pasty white and my 6 pack is more like a bag of stay puff marshmallows.
I’m in the back yard. It’s one part grass, one part weeds, one part compacted dirt.
The glue that holds it all together?
Dog Doo.
I’m standing in an island of death in the middle of a green sea of lawn. It’s like an earthen black hole where no nutrients or light can live.
My goal is to breathe green back into this desolate patch of Earth.
But it’s complicated. The soil is sad like a panhandler in Beverly Hills.
I’ve got a bag of Scott’s Turf Builder and desire.
I need to create a place where the grass seeds can thrive.
If I sprinkle them on the compacted dirt, they’ll simply be washed away with the rain. The seed that doesn’t get flushed down the drain will be eaten by the red bird that is sitting on the fence eye balling me, hoping I get a sour stomach and need to run inside for a moment.
I know the look in his little bird face. He is hungry and nothing says Las Vegas endless bird buffet like Scotts Turf Builder.
So I am tilling the soil.
It would be nice to have a steel rake or a hoe.
All I have is a shovel.
It’s better than a steak knife so I resign myself to the task at hand.
Like a piston in the aging engine of a Volkswagon Hippie Van, I raise the shovel and slam it, tip first into the dirt.
I feel the tip of the metal infiltrate the compacted dirt and pry apart an inch of soil.
I have split an Earthworm apart. I watch as both ends of the dirt snake coil angrily in the dirt.
I pull the shovel up and the compacted soil, like a magnet, pulls more dirt with it.
I thrust the shovel blade back into the compacted soil and tear apart another black hole of dusty density.
I pull the shovel up and slam it down.
I feel the shock of the blade striking the Earth, the vibration exerting force on my elbow joints.
Ouch.
The concrete soil breaks apart into chunks.
I slam the blade into the chunks dissecting them like an 8th grade lab experiment.
I slam the smaller chunks, and then the smaller chunks into it becomes a coarse powder.
Up, down, up down.
I am a human piston, slamming the Earth, chopping earth worms, digging into a black hole of condensed non-life.
I feel my muscles burn. The flowing sweat is dripping down my forehead, running into my eyes like a salty class four rapids.
Over and over and over, like a steam shovel, fueled by Heineken and scrambled eggs, I churn.
I am laboriously infused with a yard work energy that only comes by once in a while.
I decided not to work out today in the gym. Instead, I would turn yard work into my caloric burn.
So when it hurts, that’s good. When I sweat, I’m actually getting into swim suit shape.
After 10 minutes of chopping, the soil has a dark brown tilled look, sort of like a farm in the mid-west only way different.
I wipe my brow and open the bag of seed.
I grab a handful of the tiny pellets and stand 18 inches over the newly churned dirt.
I begin rubbing my fingers back and forth as the seeds drop onto the dark brown soil.
It looks like 10,000 paratroopers jumping out of planes over Nazi Germany, parachuting down into a war torn region.
The tiny white seeds cover the soil.
It looks like chocolate ice cream covered by white sprinkles.
I stand over the rejuvenated black hole filled with the possibility of growth,.
I spread a thin layer of top soil over the seeds.
A little water and the recipe for life is complete.
I wipe my sweat stained brow. My chest is covered with streaks of brown soil.
I look like a Ninja Warrior from a Salinas valley lettuce field.
“OK grass. Grow you tiny sons-of-bitches! Grow.”
And with that, my high octane farm Zumba class concludes.
I feel the burn. I burned the calories.
Anyone got a Cerveza?
I’m the lawn life giver.
Long live the digger of the dirt.
Life’s Crazy™