Not-So-Gender-Spicific Yard Work

When I think of yard work I imagine women planting the flowers and tending the vegetable patch while the men do the "hard" work of mowing maintaining the lawn. 

This spring we were not quite so typical to the gendered stereotype.  Instead of Jeff working on the lawn it was little me.  Last week a whole day was dedicated to raking our huge lawn and then two more days were spent patching holes and watering.  I can now call myself the "Queen of Lawn Care" at least on this little five acre plot (most of the five acres is woods, I'm not that strong).

When we moved here in August we got a nice new lawnmower, and Jeff took over his "man job" and mowed and raked diligently.  But alas all good things must come to an end.  By late fall the yard needed one last rake, and it never happened.  Needless-to-say this spring our yard was in pretty bad shape.

It is difficult to tell in these pictures, but there are a ton of leaves and twigs all over the yard.

Instead of nagging my husband who works very hard and is very tired after work, I decided to take things into my own hands.  It took me four and a half hours but I raked my whole yard.  I got all the leaves from last fall and the dead grass this fall (it was a really good workout).

I filled this wheelbarrow with debris seven times!!!

To justify my hard work when I was done I Googled "raking in the spring" and all the sites said that it was a good idea.  Spring raking is good for the grass even if you raked in the fall.  Yay!  All that hard work was rewarded (I don't know what I would have done if they said it was a waste of time)!

Here is the yard all clean (and my little car).  Believe me it is a lot better.

I then got some seeds and filled all the holes in the yard.  Our tenants who lived here for three years before we moved in had a big (horrible) dog who made lots of bare patches in the yard.

The guy at Lowes suggested I use "Scots" because it requires hardly any work.  I don't have to cover the seeds or water daily.

I dug up the holes (to give the seeds a place to grow), sprinkled on the seed and fertilizer mix and the grass should sprout at some point.  It has been rainy here so I have not had to water, but if it gets dry the seeds turn light brown so I know to water.  They are so smart with this stuff now.

These are just the holes right by our back steps.  I used one and a half big bags (not the biggest they had but $30 worth, that's an official size by the way). 

I may be in charge of the yard, but Jeff is holding his own in other graden departments.  He has pulled out 13 trees from our burn (more on that later).

While Jeff was being Hercules he let me plant flowers.

The world of gender roles has been restored to order.