The Great American Lawn -- FAIL!

I live in a town that I love in most respects. I have great neighbors, who can be counted on to help in a crisis. The town government is open and responsive, for the most part. The schools are great, and did well by my kids.

But everyone seems to have a gardener. No one warned us of this before we moved in. For 16 years, we have been limping along on our own.

Why all these gardeners? It's Great American Lawn fever, right in my town! Centuries from now, anthropologists will look back at the mid-twentieth century as the period when grass went mainstream. The wealthy always had nice lawns, of course. The word "greensward," meaning an area covered with green grass, was first used around the year 1600. After World War II, however, as home ownership became possible for many, lawn culture took off.

My Dad loved his Great American Lawn. Every Saturday, out came the lawn mower, and my shirtless Dad would lovingly cut and groom his quarter-acre of green. In the early days of our marriage, even my husband fussed over the lawn. After the kids were teens and no longer playing on the lawn, we even engaged a lawn service to regularly deliver a chemical mix to encourage growth and kill weeds on the front lawn.

We gave up on the Great American Lawn when we read about colony collapse disorder, which killed many, many honeybees in our area and across the country. Though this probably arose from a combination of causes, pesticides and herbicides were probably contributors.  We canceled the lawn service in an effort to do our part to save the bees. We would pull the weeds ourselves, we decided.

Well, this was a great idea, but it never happened. The weeds are encroaching -- the most identifiable one is wild strawberry, and another type with a blue flower. Dandelions abound. Burdock sneaks into the shrubbery beds (I pull those suckers out, once they get to a reasonable height. Like five feet).

Our neighbors' gardeners pull up in their pickup trucks, towing their mowers on metal trailers behind them. They always take a good, long, appraising look at my disastrous lawn as they go by. I wave gaily. Our son cuts our lawn, weeds included, to an appropriate length.

Yes, it's weedy. But weeds are green, and bees are alive.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Just call me Grumpy

I went out into the cold this morning to bring in the newspaper, and got an unexpectedl treat. The sun was just coming up behind my neighbor's house, peeking around her garage in a pale blue sky crisscrossed by pink, fluffy ribbons of cloud. The landscape lay under a faint, optimistic, pinkish glow. I didn't care. I don't feel optimistic. It's hard living with a guy who lost a hundred pounds on Weight Watchers. There's nothing like a convert to make everyone uncomfortable. I have gotten tired of his lovingly pointing out to me that I'm obese. Not chubby. Not pleasingly plump. Obese. The "O" word. I come from a whole family of cheerfully obese people, thank you very much. They enjoyed life; they enjoyed food. They got diabetes in their 60s. They didn't enjoy that very much. So much for my argument. So here I am, day two of Weight Watchers, glaring balefully at my breakfast of 3 Rice Krispies and a tablespoon of fat-free milk. "I'm so
Read more

When life turns on a dime ...

Life is precarious. We all know this, but we often forget it until reminded. Yesterday morning, my colleague and good friend got a telephone call from his wife at her office, informing him that a neighbor had spotted flames at their house, and had called 911. He and his wife both raced home. Both their boys were safely at school, so that was not a worry. But the fire had apparently burned for nearly two hours without detection, so the house was pretty much a total loss. But the newspaper this morning captured the worst part: "House fire kills pet dog." Glacier the husky was in his crate when the fire erupted. He died from the intense smoke and heat. I refuse to picture this in my mind. The family is distraught, especially the two boys, aged 7 and 5. They can rebuild the house, and get more "stuff." But Glacier is gone forever. Or at least in this life. Dogs, like people, should grow old and die in their beds. No one deserves to go this way. I guess time and faith wi
Read more

What I said ...

Here's a copy of the letter I sent to the Vestry of the Church on the Pike, edited to protect everyone's privacy. Where I refer to recent parish history, you should know that we suffered periods of tumult resulting in "dissolution of the pastoral relationship" (meaning we fired our Rectors) twice in the last 20 years. So we have a history of conflict, but had been through a long period of healing. Until the recent nonsense! My original email had some attachments, but I couldn't figure out how to attach those documents here. But you'll get the general idea of their content. "Dear Vestry Friends, This afternoon my letter of transfer arrived at St. [ ]'s. Forgive me for not saying goodbye to you all in person, but last Sunday was a difficult day for me. Moving to St. [ ]'s is the decision I reached following a process of discernment that began with the first departures from St. [ ]'s, back in September. After 5 months of prayer
Read more