Springtime Lawn Style. . .

The front yard yesterday just post-mowing. Must touch up the edges on that circular flowerbed mid-right, which will be filled with Black-eyed Susans once they emerge more fully and bloom.

And the backyard this morning just before the rains came. Even with the morning dew, the cutting and mulching worked well. Sure beats long swathes of cut grass that need to be raked up and/or stopping to empty heavy bags of clippings every ten minutes or so.

What? You didn't know that I have a secret identity? Yes, that's right. During the school year, I am an outwardly mild-mannered, inwardly tormented, and sometimes scornful so-and-so. During the late springs and summers, however, I slip off the leather dress shoes, hang up my suits, sports jackets, and neckties to become (Da-da-da-dah!!!) . . . Lawn Boy!

Acclimatizing myself to our new walk-behind lawnmower the last couple of days here at Totleigh-in-the-Wold (tongue firmly in cheek, you understand). A self-propelled Toro with mulching function, 30" cutting deck, and not too steep a learning curve, which speeds things along considerably. It still takes about two hours before everything is trimmed, but that's still much less time than with the old 19" Craftsman. It served us well in Illinois, but the houses were much closer together in Bloomington, and the yards much smaller.

For the first three summers in our house here in Mid-Michigan, we have employed a local lawn service to cut the grass twice or three times a month. They did pretty well, but never came often enough, especially in May-June, we always had to call or text to get them over here, and there were invariably missed spots, or other problems after each visit. Plus, the monthly rates kept rising. I finally concluded that it would make better sense to resume my lawn care duties and began researching larger mowers late last summer.

Hence the recent purchase, which arrived the other day. It should make things easier and help to give the area around our place a more finished, manicured appearance. Yes, yes. I know. Extremely shallow of me. I'm so ashamed.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

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Up North Style. . .

Bad Dad makes a friend. YMP and Bad Dad on the shores of Lake Michigan. Or was that Crystal Lake? The Grand Duchess takes a selfie in her kayak. How NOT to impress the girls sunning themselves along the river. YMP and Bad Dad kayaking on the Platte River headed toward Loon Lake. J ust back from a week in Northern Michigan in a charming and spacious house on the banks of the Betsie River outside of Thompsonville. A largely pleasant seven days despite some challenging episodes with the Young Master, who has picked up some very questionable habits and language from his friends in the 8th Grade during the school year just ended. But otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves and contemplated remaining for a few days longer since the house was available. In the end, we decided to return home as planned originally since neither my wife, nor I wanted to spend the remaining days chained to our computers in Zoom meetings from our vacation destination. I actually managed to leave the laptop and ip

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall. I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation. Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold. Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario. But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh. Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan. Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt. Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode. However, I was not completely useless yesterday! I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch. The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings, took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific. I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 1970s, aka The Stone Age. As it is, my sister and

Classic Style

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