Rock Gardening

We have a little fellow who comes by every few weeks to cut the grass around our place. While I appreciate most all yard crews, I'll have to admit that I have a special regard for the fellows who don't mind an occasional encounter with the snakes in the grass. If I were a snake, I could come up with at least three good reasons to dislike grass crews -- they make noise; they step on me; and they mess up my hiding place -- all of which would cause me to want to bite the bejesus out of the next one to come near me.

But the most curious thing about yard workers over here is that none of the ones I've seen have caught on to the idea of lawn mowers. They all show up with their weed whackers and spend hours upon hours whacking away at what would otherwise be about a thirty minute job with a sit-down mower. And it's not like they get paid by the hour; it's just that they prefer a good weed whacker.

So I asked our little man the other day if they just don't have lawn mowers in this country. To my surprise, he said that they do. "So why don't you use one?" I asked him. "Rocks," he said, "they mash up the blade." "And what about snakes?" I asked him. "No problem," he says, "I chop their heads off with the weed whacker." Okay, hard to argue with that sort of logic.

So I really have yet to see a lawn mower of any sort. But I have seen tons of weed whackers in action. Makes no difference how big the yard is -- this, my friends, is weed whacker country.

But it does seem as though there's a real job opportunity available here for any young Spanish-speaking entrepreneurs out there with a lawn mower handy.