Get Mow Out of Life

About the Book

How many of us have eyed a piece of sculpture (better known as yard art in many places) in a neighbor’s yard and wondered how in the world anyone could find it attractive?

Most home vegetable gardeners at one time or another have had a bumper crop, particularly when it comes to squash. We don’t want to let it rot on the vine so let’s give it to someone for free, whether they want it or not.

And how many have wakened at night and gone to the kitchen for a snack only to find a cockroach already on the counter doing the snacking?

Most folks fall into one or more of these categories. We all face these and similar situations as we tend to matters around the home and garden.

As a former Auburn University County Extension Agent with primary responsibilities in row crops and home horticulture I came in contact with interesting people from all walks of life while living in Alabama.

Tuscaloosa County, Alabama is a somewhat urban county with approximately 150,000 residents. Even so, there is ample land for cotton and corn, hayfields and livestock, and timber. And, of course, there is abundant home horticulture.

What makes Extension employment so interesting is the interaction with rural and urban residents of the county. I’ve discovered the ingenuity and humor of mankind, on one hand, and the beauty of urban and rural lifestyles, particularly farm life, on the other.

Get Mow Out of Life is a mixture of situations and reflections. I did a weekly column in the Tuscaloosa News for 12 years. In doing the column I had the opportunity to visit with and write about many people involved in all kinds of situations. It is from these experiences that the essays in MOW have developed.

The book is divided into several categories:

Around the Home involves subjects that pertain to the home landscape. For example, an antagonistic participant espouses the many fine attributes of privet at a meeting on landscape plants. Then there is a visit to explain butterfly gardening to a free-spirited commune where less clothing is best.

In the Garden takes readers into the world of vegetables. An exploding watermelon at a family gathering creates havoc for the grower. Surplus cucumbers end up in a gigantic green sculpture. A horsefly bite results in nasty consequences for an eggplant gardener and out-of-control cucuzzi squash chokes the landscape. Readers will see a unique aspect of vegetable gardening in these essays and others.

Weather affects us all so the Weather category is especially informative, including a precipitation lecture on an “ideal” rainy day and the consequences of hot weather on a chronic complainer.

Pesks (pesky pests) brings moles, possums, insects and other creatures to the forefront. A diplopodologist examines the fascinating world of millipedes and residents are in an uproar about the voracious feeding of Japanese beetles.

Everyone looks forward to holidays. The essays in the Holiday category highlight these special days. Deckscaping and a new hot tub gain prominence on the Fourth of July. For a Christmas present Santa and his trusted elf, Franklin come to West Alabama to install new turf, and on Halloween a skeleton explains landscape damage.

The Odds and Ends category brings readers to an eccentric scientist and his laboratory plagued by flies. An Auburn agriculture engineer also tries to enlighten a well-intentioned audience on lawn mower upkeep and a bumbling professor explains principles of the equinox.

The final category, rather nostalgic, takes the reader to a middle Tennessee farm where majestic trees, visits to the henhouse and metal detecting for Civil war relics, among other experiences, are recalled.

Many of the essays in MOW contain fictitious characters in situations that very well could happen, some with an exercise of the imagination. Favorite characters appear more than once. There are 66 ess

About the Author

Lloyd Weatherly is a County Agent for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Tuscaloosa County. His job responsibilities include row crops and horticulture. He has a B.S. in Biology from Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky and a Master of Agriculture from Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi. He has been an Extension Agent for 18 years. His primary responsibilities are in the areas of row crops and horticulture. Lloyd and wife, Kathryn live in Coker, Alabama.