Okay, so Jimmy Hoffa isn’t probably actually in my back yard. But a lot of landscapers are, doing some heavy duty landscaping with back hoes and tractors and stuff. This is how I know I’m a grown-up: I pay people to ride tractors around my backyard, because I don’t want to do it myself. Shut up, I’m still fun.
I bet you would do it by yourself. You just probably don’t see a need to own your own back hoe. So, if you need one, you might as well just hire somebody. That way, hopefully, the result will not be the disaster someone untrained in the mysteries of the back hoe would cause. I’m guessing you do have some sort of lawn tractor though, because damn that’s a lot of lawn.
Yea! Tractor and heavy equipment Pictures! Very nice.
$10 says you stay on your porch imagining that those trucks are tonka toys.
I know I would.
Even liking to drive trucks around doesn’t make you expert on landscaping (planting trees, etc.). Now, if you pay people to mow your grass, that’s another thing entirely. OTOH, mowing can be pretty boring (although making patterns in the grass is fun).
Wouldn’t it be fun to ride that tractor?
Riding tractors around one’s backyard: Sufficiently fun that there’s no reason to pay someone else to do it.
Actually accomplishing anything worthwhile with said tractors: Sufficiently difficult that paying someone else to do it is a darned good idea.
Being able to recognize the difference between the two is the mark of a grown-up, as opposed to being merely an adult.
What are they doing out there? Will you post pictures when they’re done? I’m curious….
You could drive your lawn tractor out there and challenge them to a race. I bet they’d accept. It’s your dime, after all.
How about recreating the tractor scene from Footloose?
Marybeth:
They are landscaping parts of the yard which needed grading and drainage.
Oooh, yes, I remember your pictures of the swamp out front. That’s always something important to do where it’s pretty flat. My front lawn has a french drain for that very reason, even then it gets a bit icky every spring when the snow melts. Isn’t being a homeowner fun?
Don’t underestimate the therapy value of running your own yard / landscaping equipment. We have 8 acres, two classic Ford tractors and a JD full size backhoe. Shaping and maintaining one’s own piece of land is a primal thrill.. And, not to nitpick,but the white unit with the digging bucket is a mini-excavator..
And more importantly, proof that you’re an affluent grown up. Other grown ups just wait until their kid gets old enough. 4 months is probably too young, right?
Anyone else imagine John shaking his fist and yelling “Get off my lawn!”?
That backyard is ridiculously awesome! How do you drag yourself to the airport when you have to leave Shangri-la?!
I have no choice but to pay others. I’m no longer allowed to operate heavy machinery…
We have a family running joke involving Jimmy Hoffa being inside our clothes dryer.
At some point we realized that Kiera thought there really WAS someone or something named Jimmy Hoffa living inside our clothes dryer.
Going to have a wood chipper of dimwit dissolution to go along with your mallet of loving correction?
The day I realised I was really and truly an adult (I still don’t know about “grown-up,” yet) was when my mother laughed at me when I told her that I didn’t buy a container of glace fruit to eat, because when I was a kid, she’d tell me that stuff was only for baking and I wasn’t to just eat it. Then I realised “Hey, wait…I have my own place, my own job, I make my own money, and if I want to eat glace fruit, I bloody well can get some of my own and eat it!” (Oddly, I still haven’t. Make of that what you will.)
My story is not as interesting as John’s, but is perhaps tastier.
@Interrobang – The day I realised I was really and truly an adult (I still don’t know about “grown-up,” yet)….
Ice cream for breakfast. I only have to be an adult when I want to.
That reminds me, I’m home sick with a cold – ice cream might taste really good about now. Time to try it out!
How many of those trees are yours? Won’t you get in trouble for destroying wetlands?