Another one of *those* days

[jhetley]

Sweating just from the walk for the newspaper, at 6:30 AM.

We did have some actual rain overnight, enough to settle the dust.  Of course, that just encourages the lawn.  (Started to write "grass", but most of our Darwinian lawn is "other" in the taxonomy list.)

Comments

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

(Started to write "grass", but most of our Darwinian lawn is "other" in the taxonomy list.)

Yours too, huh?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Yep. Haven't seeded, fertilized, or weed-killed it in thirty years. Saves gallons of sweat and money, too.

And gives an ecological advantage -- we've had a plague of European chafer and Japanese beetle grubs around town this spring, huge brown patches in well-tended monoculture grass. But the beasties don't eat much else . . .

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I've avoided using the usual lawncare stuff in the backyard because of the boys, so half the lawn is creeping Charlie and clover. I've tried the organic corn gluten stuff, but it only kills germinating weeds, not the ones that are already there.

I'd like a nice lawn, but I don't have the time or money to get it into shape. And given the fact that none of my neighbors treat their lawns, it would be a never ending battle.

Funny thing is, I think our wet, cool spring helped the weeds but impeded the grass. This is the worst the lawn has been since I started taking care of it.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

When the professional lawn-care guys spray or treat yards around here, they put up little warning signs with date and time, warning you to stay off. I'm sure that applies to pets, as well.

But we can smell the stuff from several houses away, or out in the road driving or biking past. Really makes you wonder...

And then there was the time we were traveling to visit Wife's folks, and we saw a guy at the airport surrounded by a posse of TSA uniforms running explosive sniffers all over him and his carry-on. Best they could figure out, after half an hour or so of hassle, was that he'd walked over a freshly-fertilized lawn. Ammonium nitrate...