This is the sort of  fun / nostalgic stuff I think of when I search back for memories of bonny Oaks:

Cutting the Grass,(**#@!!+?#%)

Funny how the mind works, and what it will select to remember well.
One of my early memories of Bonny Oaks is my first  outdoors work assignment, by far the most onerous of them all; cutting the grass.

A boy  eight to ten years old doesn't know that "idle hands are the devil's work-shop" (As  all good disciplinarians must surely know) nor has he the slightest desire to see Bermuda grass Johnson grass, Rag weeds Saw briers, Poison oak and Dandelions converted from tangles of barbed wire-like jungles into smooth lush carpets of green. He doesn't know what a grass  sickle is either, or how to swear properly, but he soon learns!

Through some regrettable long-range planning, an  area of grassland from Bonny Oaks Drive to the peach orchard and from the big ditch to the chicken house and milking barn areas,  was designated a "Lawn." areas. It seems to have naturally followed that the grass had to be kept down below knee-height, or better; and even as low as three or four inches high if at all possible! Now, keeping in mind that "devil's work-shop" thing, and keeping in mind that boys ten and older were needed for other heavier farm work, just try to guess who cut the grass! Give up??

Yep! A gaggle of eight - to -ten year old "littleboys", under the eye of some unlucky "bigboy"  teen-ager. That's who cut the grass. WE cut the grass! We cut the "confounded, dad-burned, cotton Pickin" grass for sweaty hours on end and, seemingly, for weeks at a time!!

Another thing to keep in mind: Power mowers as we know them today did not yet exist; reel-type push lawn mowers were still pretty primitive and needed constant fixing.  Most of us were too small to push them or fix them, so only a few of them were used and only in special areas.

But not to despair. We had sickles. Two kinds of sickles; Hand sickles and swinging sickles:

 With hand sickles, you lean over; as when you are touching your toes, or
you get to your knees or crouch; as when you are a frog, slashing at the grass and moving forward, reaching as far as you can to left and right.

With swinging sickles you stand with knees slightly bent, draw back,  and swing; much as if you were Sam Snead, hitting a golf ball for hundreds of  yards!! At which time the bigboy in charge will yell at you to get on with it!

With either kind of sickle, you build a collection of blisters, bruises, scrapes, sprains, swellings and  swear words, not soon or easily forgotten!

(Actually, it only seemed that bad.  Danged close though!!)

Best Regards,

Art