Spreading a bad idea

I woke up this morning at a wretched hour, noted that there'd been about a quarter-inch of rain, and decided that this, by Freya's bodice, would be the day I would get around to doing something about the front lawn. There had been no sign of greening, except where patches of horrid weedage were poking their way through, and, well, the first words on the back of a sack of Turf Teaser, or whatever the hell it's called, are FOR BEST RESULTS APPLY TO WET LAWN.

So I went back to sleep for an hour or two, remembered my pledge, duly rolled out the El Cheapo spreader, which has two settings (Not Enough and Overkill), dumped about 10 kg of the mystery crystals into its box, and ventured forth.

Not a wise decision. For where there is neither grass nor weed, rather a lot of area inasmuch as the old elm out front tends to suck up all the available moisture and we've been running about an inch below normal rainfall this year, there is a phenomenon called Mud, and we're talking industrial-strength, sink-up-to-here, spawn of Harcourt Fenton-type mud. Add to this one further brilliant idea — "It's not cold out, and it will be easier to clean up if I wear the ol' sport sandals" — and, well, were there any Bigfoot sightings in the neighborhood, 'twas probably I.

Had I bothered to go back to the weather statistics, I might actually have seen that that quarter-inch of rain had tripled between initial decision and actual action.

Posted at 12:22 PM to Surlywood