Alternative Forms of Yard Work

"Family Night" as a kid usually involved some sort of garden/yard activity. I always thought it totally unfair that I was usually designated as the serf that picked up whatever and wherever dad went with the clippers. I would watch my dads face, sweat sliding behind his glasses from beneath a cotton head band as he would scan the yard looking for another victim after he had slain one of our many bushes. I remember complaining once as I dragged the black plastic bag across our lawn. Although presently I am grateful for my parents examples, my fathers reply was not what a whiney nine year old was hoping to hear. Instead of a "Well, we've done enough for now, go play with your G.I. Joes and eat some cold cereal"; my father would cite Spencer W. Kimball saying the most important thing anyone can learn, is how to work. Today I can attribute my enjoyment for working to how I was raised, but after watching these firemen attack Phragmites, a destructive plant on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, I am starting to wonder how I would have turned out if my Dad had been a pyro.