08 April 2025

Spring has sprung

On Saturday, our part-time neighbors who live in Blois came down here to mow the grass at their country house across the street from us. In other words, spring has officially started... finally. That's their country house in the picture above, and a picture of Natasha admiring, or at least contemplating the cut grass. The neighbors' property is about twice as big as ours.

So yesterday, Walt got our mower out of the garage to try to get it running. He succeeded, after having to figure out how to pump up the mower's two front tires. We had bought a compressor that runs off a car battery last year, but never tried to use it. Here was the occasion to do so; both the front tires were nearly flat. After tinkering with it for 20 minutes or so, we got it going. The next step was to re-install the mower's battery, which is removed at the end of the mowing season and put in storage. That went well. By late afternoon, Walt was able to mow about one-third of our (tall) grass. The ground had dried out enough for him to be able to mow without making too many ruts. We have about half an acre of land.

All these photos are ones I took with my Lumix ZS8 camera a couple of days ago, with the exception of the photo of the lawnmower. For that one, I used my Samsung smart phone. We bought the mower last year, so it's still new to us.

By the way, not only has the grass been growing, but so have the leaf buds on the grape vines in the vineyard out behind our back gate. That's another sign that spring has finally sprung. It was almost hot outside when I went out for a walk with Tasha yesterday afternoon.

6 comments:

  1. Wow, that neighbor's lot is big! So much grass to mow.
    Great to see these spring photos, and know that your riding mower is up and running!

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    1. The neighbors have 2.5 hectares of land. That's a little more than six acres. About one acre 4.500 sq meters) of that is what they mow; the rest is woods. They bought the house in 1970. Our house sits on just over half an acre (2,300 sq. meters), and most of that has to be mowed.

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  2. I'm glad you got your mower up and running. My Dad loved his Troy-Built mower which looked a lot like your model. He rode it until he was 95!

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    Replies
    1. I hope ours lasts that long. We had a minor setback yesterday....

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  3. Ah nice that balmy weather has arrived! Love those white blossoms above. Pear?

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    Replies
    1. I'm not sure what they are. Could be pear or plums. They are on our neighbors' land.

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