I have sown grass seed on the place and will have no peace until I see the first fragile green blade.

It’s a familiar vigil.

Most springs, as the frost goes out of the ground and the sun warms the soil, I notice a patch of lawn that looks a bit sickly.

The metal rake and the topsoil and the seed will follow, a sequence as reliable as the passing of the seasons.

My modest experiments in horticulture have usually succeeded, although I can scarcely claim any credit.

Grass is tough. It hardly requires the skill needed to nurture a rare a delicate orchid.

Rough up the ground, toss a few fistfuls of seed and spray it with water a few times a day.

But the reality that germination is all but guaranteed never soothes me.

I am not by nature pessimistic. But each time I spread grass seed I am plagued, during the week or so before the first blade appears, by the prospect that this time the brown patch will yield nothing.

The seeds never stray far my thoughts.

After five days or so — too soon, I know, but I’m powerless to resist the urge — I’ll hunker down, after each watering, to check for the telltale green fuzz.

This premature inspection piques my irrational fear, of course.

But then comes the day when the promise is finally fulfilled — and what, after all, is a seed but a tiny piece of potential?

This milestone doesn’t quite tame my trepidation, to be sure.

Even as the grass takes hold I will worry — about weeds, or some unseen plague that afflicts the fledgling crop.

I’m never truly confident until the first mowing.

That magical moment when the whirring blade transforms the shaggy expanse into a neatly trimmed and lush spot that caresses a bare foot.

Not that I would dare step on new grass.

Maybe after the second mowing.

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I have become obsessed with the idea of owning an Austrian-made military vehicle from the 1970s that strongly resembles something a precocious 5-year-old might construct from Legos.

I doubt I’ll ever own one.

But the improbability of the purchase has intensified rather than stifled my fascination.

As it so often is with items we covet but are unlikely to acquire.

The rig is a Pinzgauer, which sounds like it could be a breath mint but is not.

The name might seem familiar, albeit applied to something quite different.

The vehicle, made by the Steyr-Daimler-Puch company, is named for the Pinzgauer breed of cattle.

These are not nearly so common in Eastern Oregon as Angus and Herefords.

The National Pinzgauer Association lists only a handful of members east of the Cascades.

But the cattle, I’m certain, are nothing like as rare as their namesake off-roader.

Steyr-Daimler-Puch built Pinzgauers from 1971 until 2000. More than a dozen countries bought Pinzgauers for their militaries. The vehicles were particularly popular in their home country of Austria and in Switzerland, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

The first version, from 1971-80, comes in two models, one with the conventional four-wheel layout and a longer vehicle with six wheels.

I was smitten with the Pinzgauer from the first photo I saw.

The attribute that initially attracted me, and that continues to feed my obsession, is ground clearance.

A peculiar preoccupation, I suppose, but one I came by naturally.

I drive fairly often in the mountains and the rangelands in and around Baker County, a region where unpaved roads — what certain map legends describe, in a piquant understatement, as “unimproved” — greatly outnumber the miles of blacktop.

Many of these backroads are amply supplied with boulders that are perfectly placed to punch holes in oil pans and other vital vehicular parts.

The difference between an uneventful drive, and a 10-mile hike to the nearest asphalt, can be measured in inches — specifically, how much space there is between the jutting stones and the bottom of your rig.

Pinzgauers are particularly well-endowed in this respect.

Although the actual figure depends on the tire diameter, a Pinzgauer would have at least 2 1/2 inches more undercarriage space than my Toyota FJ Cruiser, which itself isn’t low-slung.

As I daydream about owning a Pinzgauer I imagine how gratifying it would be to drive roads with carefree aplomb that, when I’m in the Cruiser, are negotiable but which require precise placement of the tires and even then results in an occasional unpleasant crunch when metal collides with granite.

As with most fantasies this one of course redacts any unpleasant realities.

The expense of maintaining a military vehicle that’s a half century old, for instance.

I have enlisted my son, Max, in my campaign for Pinzgauer ownership.

At 14, he’s an ideal cohort. He shares my enthusiasm as we watch YouTube videos showing Pinzgauers bulling through mudholes and snowdrifts and climbing rock-strewn slopes I wouldn’t try in the Toyota.

Max cares less about off-roading than about the prospect of pulling into the Baker High School parking lot piloting a Pinzgauer.

I don’t know if something by that name has ever been on campus.

But if so I’d wager quite a lot that it was the bovine version.

Jayson Jacoby is the editor of the Baker City Herald. Contact him at 541-518-2088 or jayson.jacoby @bakercityherald.com.