The Country Mice

For a rocky outcropping in the middle of the wet Pacific, we have a pretty nice lawn.

Green, flat, smooth — very lawn-like. I do believe it was very much the pride and joy of the previous owner who fed, watered and tended to it with great pleasure.

Alas, while we had swaths of green and a ride-em cowboy lawn tractor in our other country domain, the grass was peppered with untameable dandelions — salad greens and wine, anyone? — and we were not exactly the toast of the sideroad.

So now,  faced with a considerably smaller swatch and a dearth of arable land, it was time for a decision:

Feed the lawn? Or have the lawn feed us?

Easy peasy.

Enter the Mighty Machines!

I will keep you updated on our progress. But first:

Looking from the road back up to the house.

Looking east toward the mainland.

Looking from the house down to the road — the reverse of picture 1.

And…

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor

And the highwayman came riding, riding, riding

The highwayman cam riding, up to the old inn-door.

Okay, apologies to Alfred Noyes and my dear mother who taught me this poem when I was little, but that’s the image I had when wonderful Bob brought his baby up the drive.

Stay tuned. The suspense is getting to me too!