I fought the lawn, but the…the lawn won

I really hate crabgrass, specifically the wet, nearly two-feet tall clumps of crabgrass making up my back yard. But at the same time, I must give it the respect it deserves. It is an extremely tough plant. I spent an hour with my little 4.5 HP push mower trying to trim my back lawn (a little over quarter an acre). I cleared it around the shed, around my wife’s garden, the the kids’ playthings (swing set, sandbox, etc), but still didn’t finish the job. I’ll head back out and finish the job after the sun dries the lawn a little more.
___________________

Writing news: added just shy of 1,000 words on the ghost story yesterday. 

Got back my first critique on and re-read “In the Valley of Shadows.” I still have a lot of work left on this one — the overall story arch itself works fine, I think — but I need to work on the details and setting a lot more. I kind of expected this as my research was not as thorough as it should have been (the words flowed freely, but at a price). Thanks again to

grayrose76

! As someone familiar with both the location and the Saga my story is based on, her input is very appreciated. Some of those inaccuracies could have been embarrassing. 

______________________

I also took some time out yesterday for a nice long hike through Tannehill State Park. It drizzled all day, but it made for a very scenic hike. The water features (springs, creeks, and river) flowed freely thanks to the rain. I took a lot of nice shots of the river, the ruins of the slave’s quarters, the mill, and of  dogwoods blooming. 

There’s a little old slave graveyard off the trail, and I wanted to check it out to take some pictures as part of the research for my ghost story. It was a very somber experience. All those unmarked graves — just broken stones, really — put things in perspective. Those people represent a lot of the muscle that went into building the South into what it is today, and what do they get in return? Unmarked graves. At least the park personnel and regional boyscouts maintain the cemetery to keep it clean and preserved. 

____________________________________________

Quote for the day:

This one is from Through the Looking Glass. My 4-year-old loves Humpty Dumpty, and has me read chapter VI quite frequently. This passage always makes me smile:

…”The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so, after a minute, Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them — particularly verbs, they’re the proudest: adjectives you can do anything with, but not the verbs. However, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”…