Today's the day for lawn-ironing.

The driveway and contiguous grass around this ole wreck of a country house has had a hard Fall, with the constant rain it was not built to withstand. Between runoff issues caused by road construction and the gas workers' stripping of a hill across the road, on the one hand, and the fence no linger extant marking the safe-driving zones in the farm driveway, on the other-- the housemate has gifted us with a bunch of new ruts that will seriously impede Hardi's little John Deere snowplowing, which is not far off now.

Hardi and I ourselves, in past years, have caused a rut or two to form in the Mud Season that more usually comes in the spring thaw; I used to walk those ruts out in my mud boots, happily squishing the edges of the ruts back together like a clay zipper. In later years I got really good at picking the right day-- the clayey mud has to be just dry enough but not too dry, like a good batch of bread to knead-- and ironing out these ruts by driving at the correct angles, over them, to zip them back up.

The housemate and her visiting guests-- before I finally got the driveway margins and the grass marked... to guide them to steer on the dryest side of the driveway where the ruts in the gravel part of the driveway had gotten deepened and enlarged-- finally reamed us quite a few new ruts. Too many for this ole gimp to walk 'em out! So today I will pull all the markers up out of the sucking, almost-dry mud where I rammed 'em in, and use the van to iron the driveway.


In the spring, some of the ruts which will by then be smoothed but still visibly-lower than the surrounding grass (and thus ripe for puddles making wet ruts again), will be filled with peat moss and used kitty litter. And the grass-- really prairie grass we mow as if it were suburban grass-- will grow right thru and over the scars. And I have a better system now for temporary No Driving markings for the next Mud Season-- no more ramming posts by hand, nope-- plastic milk gallons full of water, with poly rope running thru the handles, because now the housemate knows roughly where it is OK to drive. The shorter jug-markers will be plenty of reminder easily moved and recycled at the end of Mud Season. And we always have dozens of full water gallons, set aside for emergency use, to deploy in this manner.

When the lawn is dry, it's fine to drive/park anywhere in it, and we often do. That is one reason Hardi needs it ironed out before plowing can be done-- in the winter we park on the grass up by the road when a bad snowfall is expected, so he can get out quick to emergency calls. We line up all the cars in front of the house and then once he has plowed the rest of the driveway, that front area is relatively free of snow because it's all fallen on the cars and we drive it away!

There will be a lot of walking today in pulling out the markers!

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In prep for winter freeze-in, I have been converting some of the PT exercises I most need to continue, into home versions. I had to get pretty creative, but I think I have them all covered now. "Kicks" (there are 4 different ones) are the simplest in deep water and hardest for me on land, for now, but I think I have all 4 Kicks worked into an easy home routine now so I can keep up the good work begun, even if I don't get out much this winter.

~S~