If there is one job both Steven and I hate the same it would be watering the lawn. The moving of the hoses, the re-moving of the hoses after you watch where the water sprays for 10 seconds, assessing that it has been moved too far or not far enough from the last place watered. The turning of the key in the hard to find spigots. And finally, the dodging of the water. It's usually a very wet process and requires a change of clothes.
Neither Steven nor I have ever had to water our lawns. Oregon has an amazing, natural sprinkler system that doesn't involve hoses or nozzles. Just an umbrella. And when it finally does stop raining for the month in the summer and the grass dries up no one blinks an eye. One last mow around the lawn and we're ready for winter in the middle of August.
Upon arrival in Utah two summers ago three people came and knocked on our door telling us that our sprinklers had been on constantly for the past week. They were supposed to be on an automatic timer but something had gone awry. We had only just arrived to the wasted desert land and realized the immediacy of finding a way to shut them off lest we be the sole reason the water reservoir be used up and Farmington city not have water until the first snow fall. We were told that we needed a 'key' to turn them off. Neither one of us had ever heard of such a thing and we went naively about, asking neighbors if we could use their key to their sprinklers. Most didn't have one, due to automated systems, and others couldn't find it, due to automated systems. We finally located one and were surprised that it looked nothing like a key. More like a cattle prod. But we got the water turned off.
We no longer live in that house and we have our own key to use on our lawn that is still surviving off of manual labor rather than an automatic system. And its a losing battle. You would think using the cattle prod to twist a little spigot handle buried in the lawn would be the easy part. Not so much. First, you gotta find the little suckers that seem to disappear every time the lawn gets mowed. Then you gotta remember which way to turn to get them to spit out the water. And if the lawn has been mowed recently you've gotta go uncover the sprinkler heads of any blocking debris. Mind you, the only reason you can see these sprinkler heads is because they're currently spewing water. But if they're blocked they're not spraying, just bubbling. So you've gotta walk out there while they're on, or else you would never find them, and uncover them. Talk about waking up a lion. You're putting yourself in the war path of a million beads of water, on purpose.
The worst part is that one of our sprinklers shoots you right in the face, and all over for that matter, when you turn it on. And also when you turn it off. For some reason it's aimed directly at the spigot in the ground and you cannot get away without drenching yourself. The other problem with this particular spigot is that it is conveniently next to the walkway of our neighbors who don't care about the lawn. Which means that the war against the water for a lawn that needs water is left to us.
Steven prefers the 'stealthy cat' dance. Scooting as close to the house as possible so as to avoid contact with the water he waltzes off our porch, sprints across under the gutter, breezes past the giant thistle growing next to the neighbor's porch and gives a mighty jump up their steps. From there he squashes himself against their door, trying to avoid the water that is going to undoubtedly get him in the end. Assessing the situation he leaps off the porch and digs the cow poke right into the ground to shut the whole monster off.
I take more of the 'bull by the horns' kind of approach. If you run between the two sprinklers in the middle of the lawn you can get by with hardly a drop hitting your skin. The problem though is turning the corner of the invisible, but highly tangible, water droplets to get to the spigot to turn it off. And then I always get stuck. My stabbing skills aren't the same as Steven's and it takes a couple of tries to get the key to catch. Turning righty tighty, second guess myself because results don't come quick enough, turn lefty loosey and finally get my head on straight and turn righty tighty. I am being pelted by sprinkler water for a good 15 seconds each time and each time I come in looking like I got caught in a typhoon.
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