BACKyard

I grew up graced with

The majestic

that towered in the back left corner of my lawn that on occasion got hit by lighting and caused electric problems with our appliances. The tall

that expanded their leafy branches in all directions providing shade for us during the summer, and in the winter, providing abode for thousands of red squirrels that ate the birdseed from our bird feeder nearly starving all the local chickadees, robins, and blue jays. The great

that dressed our lawn and deck in shades of yellow in the fall with leaves, and in the spring with layers upon layers of hay-fever causing pollen.

The trees with their tranquil beauty brought me to savor the tranquility of the wind at night, the crisp white of snow in winter, and the amount of leaves and branches a tree truly has come fall when literal truckloads of

and

and

smash to the ground and find and fill every crack and crevice of your lawn and continually find and refill every crack and crevice, especially after you take all the leaves out of every crack and crevice, until snow comes and covers the cracks and you can relax.

Yes, I was graced with trees, and lots of them.

The Lawn Story

My lawn is another story. The previous owners of my house had been avid lawn enthusiasts, and between regular watering, annual seedings, and general maintenance (i.e. cutting the lawn), they had kept the grass in pristine order. We arrived, well my dad arrived, and thought differently. My dad reads, and what he reads dictates how he acts.  So, when he was reading about John Adams, he became a history buff, a man of liberty, and a defender of the values so installed by our great and wise forefathers. When he read about the Panama Cannel, he became an all knowing epidemiologist trained in the causes and effects of yellow fever. And when he read about the environmentalist movement, he became a proponent of the “all natural” approach of living. So, we started a compost pile where rotten fruit, eggs shells, and coffee filters alike would get mixed together, decomposed, and then replaced into the soil. We subscribed to a local organic co-op that supplied us during the summer with such necessary vegetable as leeks and radishes. And lastly, we hired an organic lawn company to take care of our lawn.

The company was in charge of fertilizing our lawn a couple times a month, and occasionally spraying on organic herbicides to stunt weed growth. The first year, the lawn remained lush and attractive.  The next year though, we really experienced the real life applications of food chains through the medium of our lawn.  First, the organic lawn company sprayed an organic fertilizer onto our lawn. Next, the organic fertilizer caused maggots and grubs to thrive in the roots of our grass and then the neighboring crows started to search for the grubs and maggots and in doing so completely tore up our lawn. In many places, it looked as if we had decided to, midsummer, take a rototiller and just tear up the lawn. So, my dad called the lawn company. Their solution was to put straw down to prevent the birds from going after the grubs. This, despite obvious scientific studies as to the effectiveness of such a procedure, had no affect on the crows at all. The crows continued to pick at our lawn. Scientific solution number two was to pour red Kool-Aid powder onto the lawn, because we all know that crows hate Kool-Aid. Fruit punch must have been the one flavor that crows did not mind, because they continued on their merry way, irrigation our lawn. Meanwhile, we had a cut up lawn, full of grubs, layered first with straw, and then sprinkled with red Kool-Aid. It was impressive, in a manner of speaking. Needless to say, my dad discontinued the services of the company, a company that we were not surprised to find that had gone out of business the following year. Luckily for us, letting the lawn grow back naturally, without the magic of organics, resulted in it reaching an equilibrium of sorts. Now, we have green grass, with a slight undertone of weeds mixed throughout and we’re fine with that. I guess growing plants “100% all natural” sometimes means just that.