The sounds of spring fill the air: the songs of birds, the chattering of squirrels, aka the spawns of Satan, and the annoying hum of leaf blowers and saws. Yesterday the landscaper’s crew was at my house for several hours clearing between my house and the rental. The tree which had fallen this winter was sawed into manageable pieces, all the branches on the ground were cleared and the underbrush was cut. The wild space looks as clean as it ever has. My front yard too is cleared of debris as is the driveway area and the dividing space beside my house and Sebastian’s, my neighbor. Today the men were working at a house down the road. I could hear them long before I saw them.

My dad never bought a power mower. He used his old cutting mower. Every spring he’d bring it to the hardware store to have the blades sharpened. His only lawn was in front and between his house and the neighbor’s. He mowed that lawn every week. I used to sit on the front step and watch. He had a technique which never varied the whole of his life. He used a wide pattern to cut the grass and moved from one side of the lawn to the other slightly overlapping the cutting lines as he went. He always raked when he was finished. He always raked everything to the middle then picked it all up and put it in a leaf bag. I still love hearing the scratching sound of the rake.

My visual memory of my dad raking is a fall memory. He’s wearing a maroon jacket, one with a zipper that used to be his father’s. He constantly moves the rake. He starts on one side of the lawn and begins raking the grass which becomes a small pile. He keeps raking and moving that same pile, adding to it as he rakes. Finally the small pile becomes part of the big pile in the middle of the lawn. Every now and then my dad stopped to neaten the big pile before moving to another side of the lawn.

When my dad was done with his raking and the leaves were bagged, he’d put his rake and mower back into the cellar until the next week. His grass, raked and cleared of fall debris, always looked a bit beaten low to the ground and headed in one direction from the raking.

My dad was proud of his summer lawn. When I visited my parents during grass season, my dad would always ask if I had noticed how good his lawn looked. I always did and told him so. He’d just nod. That was always the answer he expected.