eptivity

It was nice and warm today: a balmy 80 or so degrees (F). Don’t tell my dad, but walking home in the sun kind of made me want to do yardwork.

I’m not sure what it was about the nice warm sun today that inspired this bizarre desire. Although I would estimate a full 80 percent of childhood activities with my dad involved working outside, it was certainly not confined to nice sunny weather: if one were to wait for the sun in this climate, one would never get anything done. Fall was for raking leaves, squirreling away firewood for winter, and pulling the blackberry bushes and English ivy that cover my parents’ property; spring and summer were for mowing the lawn and planting, watering, and otherwise tending the garden. When I was in second grade or so, Dad was forced by the market (that is, what my best friend’s dad was paying her for the same job) to pay me a penny per weeded weed and I managed to make $20 in time to go to the county fair.

This arrangement, however, was not repeated (see: previous entry regarding $0.000625 to feed the horse), and since most yardwork at home did not include the happy golden sun dancing through the trees, I can only conclude that these fond associations of warm yardworking are from years more recent, when I was in college and living in Walla Walla. In Walla Walla, one needn’t wait for the sun; the sun will find you. It will sunburn you through the window as you nap on the couch. It will cook the interior of your parents’ 1978 Ford Thunderbird to such a degree that you can’t tell if it’s the orange vinyl seats or the skin on the back of your legs that’s melting.

I spent an entire week in the hot, hot July sun weeding my aunt Bonnie’s giant flower bed. I’m certain that if I had been paid by the weed, even disregarding adjustment for inflation, I would now be independently wealthy.

The same summer, I helped my grandpa and the aforementioned Aunt Bonnie move sprinkler pipes two or three times a week. That sounds like fun, right? Running through the cool, cool spray of a sprinkler on a hot, hot day? Even the name is fun: mmm…sprinklers!

But first, you should really attach that sprinkler to a 4-inch-diameter metal pipe that’s 30 feet long.* And then fill the pipe with water. And then carry it 40 or so feet through waist-high thistles and assorted scrub brush. You remembered to wear jeans and a long-sleeved shirt so you wouldn’t get scratched up, didn’t you? Oh, and knee-high rubber boots. Did I mention that it’s 95 degrees?

See what I’m talking about with the yardwork? Good, good times.

* These numbers are probably made up.