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I’m not at all sure what this says about me or my current time in life — but I’m super excited to be purchasing a tiller in the coming weeks.

This comes closely on the heels of the high-end excitement that swirled around purchasing a new washer and dryer recently.

I can admit, that in the days that temperatures peaked in the 60s recently, I turned my attention to the gradually revealing plot of land in the back 40 of our house where my crops will grow this summer.

Well, will be attempting to grow as yet another year of trying to grow peppers was supremely wasted and broccoli — though coming on strong in the beginning — failed in the front stretch.

Actually, the entire garden last year was fairly underwhelming,so I’m trying a couple things this summer and that includes buying a tiller to try and work the soil up a little bit more.

I’m also intending on rotating some things around to break up the routine.

WAIT! Come back. I’m sure this will get more interesting as we go.

Ever since I turned 47, it’s been fairly obvious that I was getting older. The hints are there: The numbers are getting higher, I’m spending more time staring at the yard without knowing what I’m really looking for and there’s been more than a few times I’ve had the urge to yell “get off my lawn” whenever a kid happens to be walking by, very much not walking on my lawn.

Oftentimes, I can be found looking at the bare patches in my backyard, shaking my head and muttering to myself, “Mmmm, mmm, mmm, going to have to do something about that.”

I try to look at myself in the mirrior and tell myself that I’m one of those handsome men that look better in the new strands of gray in the goatee, but I’m just not. Gray does nothing for me other than to once again remind me that 47 is suspiciously close to 50.

I was walking by a mirror two years ago when I thought I heard “Growing Up” say something as I passed about getting older, but it was just the sound of my knees starting to give way, another hint I so casually ignored in the face of aging evidence.

It’s not all bad. I’m not groaning yet when I get up off the floor at a Packer boys basketball game. That’s a win.

What I’m telling myself with the tiller is that this is just another hobby I’m growing in and that I’m getting the tools to continue reminding me how much fun I’m having killing plants.

Not that I have anything truly awful against aging. It was bound to happen sooner or later and I still have an immaturity streak that runs through me like Wile  E. Coyote running off a cliff.

It’s just — I didn’t think it was happening so fast. After looking into this mess, I’ve apparently have been growing older for years without really knowing it. It just kind of snuck up on me, which I find incredibly rude.

I had no time to plan for this eventuality. One minute I’m being pulled behind a car on a sled in the Huron Plainsman parking lot in South Dakota late one night, and the next I’m looking at tillers and thinking — where did the time go?

Don’t give me that sideways glance Reader 23. Everybody wonders where time has gone, even during a pandemic and you’re watching your 26th straight hour of M.A.S.H.

Where has the time truly gone? I don’t know. I’m more concerned about trying to figure out why I have an empty bowl of popcorn.

Hour 27 is about to start and Hawkeye is up to shenanigans.