Mowing the Neighbor's Lawn

I mow my neighbor's lawn.  I really can't say why.  I've never met him, nor do I know much about him. 

I've never been asked to do it, let alone paid for it.  I just do.

I know he's an old man, who lives somewhere else.  He's been trying to sell his house for years, but with things the way that they are, nobody has been interested.  It's kind of sad.  It's actually a very nice house.  Sort of an Up North looking chalet style kind of thing, might have been sold as a package home from a lumber yard.  You can probably picture the sort of place.  Not too big, not too small.

It's just that it's here.  Up here, the real estate market isn't so good, just like in many other places.  The number of people who actually live here year round is probably smaller than the number who do not.  So that larger group of homes, and the percentage gets larger the closer to the lake you go, go figure, are not full time residences. 

This community of Au Gres is sort of a vacation summer type community, or at least it seems that way.  There is a lot of farming around here.  Back in the early part of the 20th century Au Gres billed itself as the Onion Capital of the World.  I have a first day postage cover from the opening of the Au Gres airport, I think it was in the 1930's sometime.  The commemorative postage mark is that of a large onion, with that Onion Capital thing above it.  Pretty neat small town stuff.

Nowadays, the airport is still kind of there, but it's closed, and there is a few industrial complexes taking up about a third of the old airport property.  Makes me sad, but then again, I am an aviation guy, so of course it does.

Mowing my neighbor's lawn though.  It started out innocently. 

There is a 'vacant' wood lot between his property and mine.  I don't know who owns it, hence the demiquotes.  Nobody was mowing the frontage on that lot, so I started doing it.  It's just a 30 yard extension of what I already do for my own property, and only about 12 feet deep.  So no big deal.  And it makes the neighborhood look nicer I think.  Besides, I didn't want anyone to think that I owned that vacant lot, and wasn't mowing it.  The upper crust would be horrified. 

Then, as a sort of natural progression, I started looking at the frontage in front of my neighbor's house.  No one had been taking care of his lawn for about a year.  And my frontage, and the vacant lot's frontage, sort of runs into that frontage.  So I started mowing that part too.  Another 30 yards or so.  At that point, I'm now mowing almost 100 yards of frontage.  Still not such a big deal, I mean, I do have a lawn tractor after all.

Then, as I was mowing the frontage in front of the neighbor's house, I started looking at the house every time I did a row of grass.  Seeing how vacant and sad it looked.  The for sale by owner sign now removed from the front yard, and propped up against the garage door.  Almost like they've given up for now. 

I decided to mow the whole front yard up to the front porch.  No harm in that, right?  I might help sell the house even.  It would be wonderful to have a nice family or something move in next door.  I liked the idea of it more and more as I did it.  I was the champion of the neighbor hood I was! 

I rationalize doing it sometimes.  I tell myself that I dump my leaves over the fence, into the vacant lot often, and if the neighbor actually owns that lot, then me mowing his front yard is a kind of repayment for dumping the leaves into the wood lot.  The sort of agreement, that hasn't actually been made, ever.  Probably the same type of deal arrangement some people make when they steal things actually I bet. 

Kind of like, I'll take this twenty dollars, they'll never miss it, because they have so many twenty dollar bills.  I'll put it back as soon as I get paid.  Maybe even leave an extra one someday.  But they never do. 

I'm not sure why I really do it.  It does take a little extra time.  I might even get in trouble for doing it, which I admit does make me chuckle a little to think of.  There is a little of the anarchist within me yet.  Random acts of kindness are sort of anarchist too maybe.  There are no rules telling you to do things like that.  And actually some telling you to stay off your neighbor's property when not invited.  But I don't pay much attention to casual rules like that. 

If he didn't want me to mow his lawn, he'd put up a fence. 

So if you come over, and I told you I'd be mowing my lawn, but you don't see me.  Look next door, I might be there.  Don't forget to look behind the neighbor's house too, there's no telling when this sickness I have will tell me I should mow back there too, and pick up the leaves too. 

Cheers, to random kind acts.