Lawns

1950’s summers now seem long hot
sunny blue skied as our garden
surged into rampant jungle growth.

On Saturdays Dad’s elderly lawn
mower roared forth scything
before him thick grass except alas
for that Australian invader’s
tall seed heads – paspalum grass.
Those wiry stalks gouged deeply
into the sides of our hands as we
picked them by hand across our
seemingly endless lawns as our
aching backs stayed bent for the
monster emerging from our garage.

Oh the relief when a young
efficient mower arrived.

The ancient Christmas plum tree
waited for the summer school
holidays then daily dropped a
deluge of tiny scarlet fruit with
enormous stones for six weeks.
A cloud of stones ricocheted
from the mower’s blades round
the back garden so we three had
to gather up the stinking sticky
mass of rotting plums with stones
into brother’s trolley remove it
to the hen yard, scrub out
brother’s trolley …… Yurk !!

Thankfully the old tree’s crop
gradually diminished over time.