The irony is not lost on me.

Over the years that we have lived in this house Rick and I have come to the unanimous agreement that we both hate yard work. I blame the heat, the fact that we have no idea what we are doing when it comes to planting things, and that it is a weekend duty that takes me away from catching up on Whale Wars or enjoying a leisurely brunch. After two years of testing the limits of the Webster Groves yard maintenance requirements for how high the grass can get without getting cited (they say 6", but you can get away with 8), we decided to splurge and get a "yard guy". Enter...Pedro Martinez, Landscaper Esq.

I am not sure how our paths crossed with Pedro's, but I think he was mowing a neighbor's yard and I got his card (yes, he has a card, with clip art and everything!). I should mention that Pedro speaks about 5 words of English (we are on a strict "don't ask, don't tell" immigration policy over here at CdE), so my first call with Pedro was a little dicey and it took him 2 hours to find our house, but we ultimately reached an agreement on services and pricing and away we go....The only thing I asked of Pedro is that he not kill my one lonely peony shrub that managed to sprout this year. He nodded in enthusiastic agreement and I think even mentioned something to Rick about building a little something to protect it (though who really knows what he's saying?).

What I have learned over the past two months is that Pedro is a little heavy-handed with the weed whacker. The peony didn't even survive the next Pedro visit, and then for some reason he took the weed whacker to the sides of my hydrangea bush the next visit to give it a sort of "high and tight" look. There were chunks of hydrangeas all over the side of our house and it looked like a botanical crime scene. But the yard was mowed. Hell, everything was mowed.

But because we are SO anti-yard work, Pedro remains at our service and continues to massacre our yard on a weekly basis. We will continue to sit idly by and watch the carnage as Pedro, the man we hired to protect our yard, kills it slowly. We will watch diligently...until it's time for Whale Wars.