Ten Minutes At A Time

Later this week we're having some lawn renovation work done. It hasn't rained for a couple of weeks, so the company asked us to give the grass a good watering ahead of time to make sure the soil was moist to make their soil preparation work easier and more effective. Our clay-heavy soil absorbs water slowly, so the plan was to run the sprinkler in each area about ten minutes, then repeat the whole procedure to make sure the water soaked in and didn't run down the sewer.

Hubby Tony is the main grass caretaker, but yesterday afternoon while he was at work I decided to get the watering job started. I found the fancy sprinkler on a shelf in the garage and attached it to the hose, then set it in a far corner of the back yard.  Once the sprinkler was in place I walked back to the faucet and turned it on. The result wasn't encouraging. Instead of oscillating gracefully from side to side, the sprinkler arm moved halfway, then got stuck. I tried moving the dials in different directions, but nothing worked.

Feeling frustrated, I sent Tony a text telling him he'd have to look at the sprinkler when he got home from work. He did, and moved all of the dials again, and got the same result. With the large sprinkler out of commission we changed over to a stationary sprinkler that Tony uses to water the smaller areas of the yard. It works well, but only covers an area about five feet by five feet. Our yard is about a third of an acre.

Last night I moved the sprinkler until it got too dark outside to see.  This morning I started the project about 7 AM, right after I came downstairs.  Except for the two hours I was out running errands I watered until the job was done at about 6 PM.  Thanks to all the sprinkler moving I had no problem getting my steps in today.

On his lunch hour Tony went to the hardware store and bought a sturdy metal oscillating sprinkler. We've tried it and figured out it will cover a much larger area. Good thing, because once grass seed is sown we'll have to keep it moist until it germinates.