The official start of spring is almost here. I know this because I received a Sears catalogue depicting what appears to be an all-American family taking time off from its busy modeling schedule to cook hamburgers on a brand new stainless steel grill large enough to accommodate an entire side of bull elk. As you would expect, children were in the yard squirting each other with water toys and running barefoot over a perfectly manicured lawn which, judging from the size of the family dog, must be self-cleaning.
Mom was nearby, well oiled and laying on a lawn chair in her bathing suit, still recovering from her recent Victoria’s Secret lingerie shoot in the Bahamas.
Around the Hickson household, spring starts out a little differently. I was reminded of this yesterday as I stood in our back yard, waist-deep in weeds, swatting at a mosquito with a rusty spatula and trying to remember the last time I saw our hibachi. Each year, I promise myself I won’t begin the spring by embarrassing our entire family.
And each year, a search and rescue team finds me whimpering somewhere in our back yard, surrounded by weeds, laying in a fetal position next to our lawn mower.
My family has a hard time understanding this. Especially since, in most cases, I’m found less than six feet from the house. I tell them not EVERYONE is born with a keen sense of direction, and that all of this could be avoided if I just had a riding mower with Onstar.
I generally lose this argument because, as my family points out, I could find my way out of the yard by following my own clipping path IF I didn’t insist on starting out with a crop circle every time.
That’s when I’m sent back out to mow the lawn with an orange rope tied to my belt. The mowing process can last up to several hours or, like yesterday, less than 15 minutes, depending on how long it takes me to run over the hibachi. While I can laugh about it now, I wasn’t laughing when I was blinded by a spark so intense it flash-burned the hair off my legs.
The good news is that neighbors unfortunate enough to be facing a window — any window — at that particular instant are expected to regain their sight within a few days.
However, this still leaves me with a partially mowed yard and what is now a two-piece hibachi set. On one hand, having separate grilling surfaces is nice, but only if the total net volume of what you’re cooking is equal to, or less than, one chicken drummette.
For example, I tried preparing hamburgers for our family. This process took just under four hours, the last 15 minutes of which was spent waiting in line for our order at Burgerville. That experience has led me to consider buying a new grill. Something I can cook multiple items on, which would therefore make it large enough to avoid running over with the lawn mower.
This is particularly important to me if we go with the propane model.
Then again, if I run over THAT, it could really speed up the lawn mowing process.
(You can write to Ned Hickson at nhickson@thesiuslawnews.com, or at the Siuslaw News at P.O. Box 10, Florence, OR. 97439.)
Ned's Blog 
For a regional adaptation, might I suggest spring begins when the snow melts enough to reveal the hibachi in the back yard? Followed by the mud drying out enough to allow you to walk to the hibachi without stepping out of your mud-suctioned shoes. My heart goes out to the blinded neighbors, here’s to a swift recovery!
Hahaha! I’ve never lived anywhere it snowed that much, but I can imagine! I took the kids clamming once, and the mud was so thick my son stepped out of his boot and landed mouth-open in the stinky silt. He started throwing up as a gag reflex, which started my daughter barfing so hard she fell out of her suctioned boots. I stood there with my clamming pale and shovel, seriously thinking about just backing away slowly and pretending they weren’t mine.
Had you followed that escape plan I think it would have been difficult for anyone to blame you.
Thanks for the confirmation, Paul 🙂