February 20

Today I spent the afternoon “mowing” the lawn with a machete-type tool. Around our house there are tall grasses (several feet high, because it’s the rainy season now) and we were warned that unless we cut the grasses soon, they will become infested with breeding mosquitoes and possibly poisonous snakes. So we borrowed a tool, the only one available for cutting grass and plants. It looks like a long thin machete but it’s not as sharp. It took forever to make any progress on the grass! I finally cut one patch, but I’ll have to continue tomorrow. It’s the best exercise I’ve had in months. I’ll never complain about mowing grass with a lawn mower again. I think goats and cows are the best lawn-mowing devices. There are lots of them in Odibo eating up the growing plants, but they couldn’t get into our yard because of a fence. I heard that cats sometimes fight snakes. There are a few cats around here, so hopefully they will keep the snakes away.