Who Mows Grass Just to Mow Grass?

Mowing today: This weekend I find myself shootin' the breeze down in St.G. I had hopes of mowing my lawn today(1) and they were promptly answered by my Dad. Mowing my home lawn is always a bit of a stress. The mower is not something I'm used to. It's difficult to move on the grass and it only has one gear: Fast. I constantly find myself trailing behind it like an owner on a leash. Truth be told, I can deal with how fast it goes. It's my dad's technique that drives me crazy. The poor, ignorant man holds efficiency above that of art and beauty which, as many people do not know, is what mowing is really all about. We double teamed the lawn, me with the 21 and him on his rider mower. He had me mow the hard to get spots and said he'd meet me in between. I couldn't help but grimace as our lines collided like two horribly gone wrong trains. I tried to focus on the efficiency but found myself feeling stunted. Like Bach when he was forced to write only church music(2). Anyway, in our efficiency we finished quickly with nothing to show for it except a cut lawn. *shakes head* When will people learn?

In other news I pruned the rose bushes today. They're the baby roses that look more like flowers than actual roses. I pruned them the last time I was down so the bush was blossoming with new growth. Unfortunately, a lot of the new was getting suffocated by the heavier, dying flowers that had no place on the bush anymore. As I cut off these beautiful, but unnecessary flowers to make way for the new I wondered if I needed a mental pruning myself. I stared into my bucket at the black stems and white petals scattered on the bottom and pondered all the things I needed to get rid of. Sins, bad habits...bad friends. I remembered some of the bushes at the temple; the sagging stems that contained so many full roses but dead buds because the full roses had greedily kept all the nutrients for themselves. I thought to myself, how often do I prune? And more importantly, how many buds have died because I have neglected to do so?

Perhaps this blog is about more than just mowing.

1 We got Friday off this week for Pioneer Day so I didn't get to mow the temple block :(

2 Did that really happen? I swear I watched a movie about it in Orchestra way back when