My lawn mower died.  It choked on wet grass, coughed up a dark cloud of smoke and gave up the ghost.  No amount of coaxing could get it to live again.  It was done. Dead and gone.  How did we get here though? 

When the rains came, they found parched land with grass baked brown by the heat.  The earth soaked the rain water with a thirst that was not easy to slake.  As the rains soaked the earth, the grass grew with vim and vigor.

My grounds keepers mowed the grass, but it grew faster than they could mow it.  And one day, the lawn mower packed up and died. Then, chaos ensued.  Stick with me on this one. The story gets a little whacky.

Philo hates birds.  I have no idea what they did to her, but ever since she came home from the animal shelter, she has never liked birds.  She chased away the wild geese that had made my compound their home.  She barks at the weaver birds as they go about noisily building their nests.  The Starling birds are not tolerated despite their beautiful iridescent blue color.  Philo simply hates birds.  End of story.  I wonder what will happen when I get some geese to help with lawn mowing duties?  I chuckle.

With the grass growing and now at twelve inches high, birds moved in.  Guinea Fowl and Yellow-necked spurfowl moved into the underbrush.  The birds were noisy and chaotic and poor Philo could not get to them.  She was upset and frustrated. I loved it.  I could just sit home and watch the birds as they went about their foraging and nesting and generally being noisy.  It seemed even the birds that preferred the trees got onto the ground more often.  I saw a go-away bird hopping around the ground with its loopy gait – almost as if it’s falling.  I even got a glimpse of the elusive Hoopoe. 

Then the bees swarmed.  I got home one day to a buzzing sound at my entrance.  I could not understand where this was coming from, until I looked up and there, in the eves of the house was a budding bees nest.  This was now getting out of hand.  I quickly called Phillip the bee whisperer and asked him to make haste and whisper the bees out of my house.  A couple of days later, he came home and whispered to the bees, but they escaped to a nearby tree and not the intended hive.  Phillip is a true bee whisperer, so he simply hung the hive next to the tree and by evening, the bees were in the hive.  Happy and settled. As we speak, I have a total of six occupied hives.  So exciting!!

Between the birds and the bees, I needed to get my lawn back on track.  So, I called a professional to come and mow my lawn as I figured out what lawn mower to get.  Then, I got onto ChatGPT and asked it to give me an analysis of the lawn mowers locally available and what it would recommend for my lawn.  What do you know?  ChatGPT gave me a full analysis of what to buy, where to buy it and what it would cost.  Off I went to get a lawn mower.  A nifty affair that makes me want to mow my lawn every single day.

The birds are gone, but I’ve been thinking – why do we mow our lawns and leave the birds without a place to nest and feed their young? This experience has made me decide to redesign my lawn.  I need bushy spaces for the birds to nest and hide.  I need to have these bushy spaces full of wild flowers for the bees to collect nectar.  The idea of a wild bushy garden is more appealing than that of a neatly mown lawn. More importantly, I should seriously consider having sheep to mow my lawn and not mechanical mowers.  Sheep like those in the Flintstones or that animated series called Shaun the sheep.  They are efficient, effective, and make great dinner at the right time!

Here comes my next experiment!