Yesterday was the Labour Day public holiday in New Zealand. As usual, I didn’t do anything special on the day, apart from labouring on my work on the house. I did not, however, do any actual gardening this weekend, like so many other Kiwis do on Labour Weekend. This is a sort of review of what I’ve been up to, and what I wasn’t up to, at this time of year.
Technically, I
did do some work on the gardens, loosely defined, all of which was directly related to taming the wild lands that is my backyard. It began a week ago today when I mowed the back lawn—or, more accurately, I started mowing it. I used the line trimmer first to tame all the boundaries, including the infamous bank along the side of my yard, which is something I haven’t done since early winter (around two months, in other words).
I then started mowing the itself, but only got about two-thirds through before the battery died, something that hasn’t happened in a very, very long time. The issue is that it had been around three and a half weeks since I last mowed, with extended rainy spells delaying me. Unfortunately, that rain coincided with somewhat warmer temperatures than is normal at this time of year, meaning everything grew fast and thick. It also meant that it was moist down near the soil level, and that heavy glugginess is what drained the battery.
I went back inside and put the battery down to cool (it won’t charge right after heavy use because it’s too hot and the charger has censors to prevent overheating—and the “thermal runaway” that can cause the battery to explode). Then, I grabbed a broom and swept the cemented areas out there (the patio, and outside the side door). The mower battery didn’t finish recharging until around 5pm, and I was over it by then.
The next day, I finished the mowing. Monday’s mowing took around 23 minutes, and Tuesday needed another 13 minutes (my watch tracked it for me). To put this into some context, it normally takes me 20-odd minutes and around half a battery charge to do the entire back lawn.
We’re now at the point of the year when I really ought to be mowing the back lawn every week, not every other week as I had been doing. I looked at the lawn late this afternoon and saw it could use another mow already. Actually, the photo up top shows weeds blooming in my lawn on Saturday—and that was just the biggest (and, I’d argue, the prettiest…) display in the lawn: The first small blooms reappeared a few days earlier.
However, I’d originally planned to plant some things for summer (like tomatoes ), and that meant a I’d have to join the throngs at the home centre—except I didn’t. I reviewed my budget and decided to put it off a few more days.
A much bigger barrier was that some rainy weather returned. I still need to move the Vegepod to its new home, and that means putting some pavers into the lawn to keep the wheels from sinking into the ground. The weather kept me from working on that, but I at least made the paper template that will make it faster and easier for me to place the pavers—when the weather permits, of course.
Actually, part of the reason I pushed through the mowing was that I needed to do that before I moved the Vegepod. Just as the weather delayed the mowing, it then again delayed me working on the Vegepod, too. This week, maybe? I live in hope.
Before last week, I was working slowly on Spring Cleaning inside the house, with tidying, scrubbing, and also lots vacuuming—so thorough that it required several battery recharges. As I worked through all my recent projects inside the house, I realised that all of them—indeed, all my many projects that are in any way related to my house—will take as long as they take. Nearly everything I’ve done, especially over the past few months, has taken me longer to complete than I’d anticipated. I now expect that to be true.
Nevertheless, I have a new goal: I want to complete my
“Operation Reinvent My House” (mega?) project by the end of the year. That project is a refresh and reorganising of the
inside of my house (not including the Garage of No Return, but it does include the patio, which is why I need the Vegepod moved). Why the end of the year? Well, mostly just because I don’t want to extend this work into
yet another year: I want it to be over. Well, “over” until down the road I either decide to redecorate again, move somewhere else, or whatever. I still hope to get the garage sorted by then, too (a birthday present for myself?), but, yeah, first things first.
So, that’s what I’ve been up to in recent weeks. What’s new with you?
Update – October 28, 2026: Today was a sunny day, so I mowed the back lawn, and it did, in fact, need it. In fact, it was long enough in patches that I could hear the mower briefly labour a bit. However, mowing the whole lawn took me a more typical 19:30 and I ended up with a similarly typical roughly half of the battery's charge remaining. At the moment, next week is looking to be rainy, apart from Monday. Yay.
