Finding Waldo, The Redneck Version

Evidently, my husband’s and my sons’ lawn care plan for the year is to spend the summer mowing around all the crap in our yard. That means that if, please Lord, they were to ever move it, there would be raised-relief images in the grass.

I’m thinking that the angels who are on coffee break in Heaven could relax by the porthole that overlooks our little corner of redneckdom and play “Find the hidden pictures”. The game works like this:

Ten points for the first angel to find the horse trailer that most people would keep behind the house, near the barn; but we . . . and by we, I mean my husband, Greg . . . keep it in the front yard.

Fifteen points for finding each of the dozen or so dog kennels that are scattered through the yard. Twenty-five extra points to the angel that finds the one kennel that isn’t broken.

Twenty points for the tree limbs that have been in the yard since the ice storm of 2009.

Twenty points for the bales of hay that Greg bought to feed the sheep that Greg bought to train the dogs that Greg bought to add to the list of animals that stress my life.

Twenty points for the wood that Greg cut after the goat ate the bark and killed the tree that was planted in my mother’s memory.

Twenty-Five points for the zipline cord that Greg once hung between two trees . . . ignoring the instructions and hanging it much higher and longer than any sane person would consider safe.

(I have got an extra twenty-five points and a big shout-out of thanks to the angel that rode the zipline with my 12 year-old son and kept him alive when he ran into the down-hill tree at “break your back and kill you dead” speed.)

Miscellaneous notes for the angels: Try to ignore the incessant dog barking. Sorry about the odor wafting up from the horse trailer. And, please don’t tell God about the patch of grass that looks like a big, bald man lying dead in the back yard.

First published May 22, 2012.