Posted: Sunday, September 20, 2009 6:43 am

Dang. Recent weather has Hammerhead out in the garage planning an ark.

“With the cost of lumber, plan is all I can do these days,” he confided.

Unless you can build an ark with a couple of knotty 2-by-4s and several, uh, empty, uh, kegs?

Wife Betty Lou has turned her mind, as usual, to more practical issues.

“How in the heck are we going to cut the grass?” she asked H-haid after she pulled into the driveway one wet afternoon this week.

Ol’ Hammerlips flinched when she asked that question, hoping that she had forgotten that her hubby dearest had managed to avoid clipping the yard last weekend.

Unfortunately, her memory is much sharper than her somewhat befuddled hubby.

“I KNEW we should have mowed last Friday or Saturday ... or what about Sunday?” she said.

“Sunday????” responded Hammerhaid, who had absolutely no idea what they did during last weekend. So, he stuck out his neck and got lucky.

“Dang, it was so busy last weekend. Things were a blur,” he responded.

“Hmmmmmm,” she responded. Personally, she was busy, but she had her doubts about hubby. Like a viper watching a rat, she waited for him to stick his neck out. Fortunately, Hammerhaid was clueless and decided to keep his mouth shut.

“I’m not sure if I ever remember this much rain in September,” he said. “It used to be wet in spring and dry, dry, dry until the Celebration arrived in late August. Then we would get a little rain ... just enough to make things muddy.”

“The Celebration?” she asked. “It’s been years since you’ve been to the horse show in Shelbyville. It’s got to be 15 or 20 years.”

“Dang! No way,” he said as the years slowly set in. “I guess your right. It has been a long time,” he admitted.

Hammerhaid hasn’t been to a horse show since the days of acid-washed jeans and big hair. Back in those days, his favorite look was acid-washed jeans, a bright orange UT shirt and an acid-washed jacket. He even had hair in those days.

Betty Lou’s look was similar, but uh, much more together. She certainly wasn’t as rumpled as H-haid. And her jeans were much, uh, more, lessee, tighter.

Well anyway ... ‘twas a look that is gone and probably best forgotten.

Meanwhile, Hammerhaid fired up the ol’ laptop to do something he couldn’t do back in the 1980s ... research about cutting wet grass.

He discovered a few useful tips.

Like set the mower as high as possible. (That’s not too much of a pill.)

Switch the mower from mulching to side-discharge. (Again, that’s fairly easy.)

Sharpen the blade before mowing. (Ut-oh, that requires bending over and crawling around.)

Mow so the grass discharges onto the already mown area. (Again, that’s not so bad.)

Double-mow to help break up the clumps of grass. (That’s one step too far.)

All those steps (and bending over and crawling) made Hammerhaid reach one conclusion.

“Betty Lou, where’s that phone number for the kid that mows yards?” he asked.

“Hammerhaid,” she snarled. “There’s no way that little boy can mow our wet, thick grass. You should be ashamed.”

“OK, Ohhhhhh-kay,” he answered with a sound of sad resignation in his voice. “Give me the number of lawn-mowing pro. I know he will charge me an arm and a leg or maybe even $30 bucks to do what that kid does for $10.”

T-h-h-h-hhat’s r-r-r-r-r-right.