Tuesday, April 19, 2011

The Grass May Be Greener

On the way home from work one evening recently, I drove past some of the most beautiful and lush green grass and I found myself thinking, Is that good grass or bad grass? It's so pretty it must be good grass!

Now, I can say with absolute certainty, my momma never told me much of anything about grass other than, "Go get the mower and cut it before your father has a fit!" You see, if it was outside the house, green and growing that was the grass, aka the lawn. And truth be told, our "lawn" wasn't exactly green all the time. Sometimes we had a carpet of beautiful sunny yellow, when the buttercups and dandelions wear blooming.
Their happy little faces beaming up always made me smile and they still do. I would pick handfuls of them for mom and she would dutifully oohh and ahhh and place them on the window sill in little cups of water where they would promptly wilt and die.

After the yellow, the back yard would become a carpet of purple. Violets by the thousands springing upwere everywhere. Some were a dark royal purple and and some a much lighter variety, no one  knows where they came from, but Mom and I enjoyed them while they lasted.

In the fall the yard was burnt orange. Two huge white pines dropped their needles and blanketed the yard. As a girl I would use those needles to make paths and create a sort of floor plan in the yard. I would play for hours in my imaginary house, and come in coated with sap, pine cones in my pockets, pine needles stuck in unusual places. It was great fun, that is until Mom had to scrub off the sticky spots with pine sol.

Anyway, the question of what kind of grass we had never came up. Flash forward a few lifetimes and I'm married for the second time. Hubby and I are sitting on the lawn outside our condo. The lawn isn't much bigger than a postage stamp, but hubby started ripping up large clumps of grass. When he saw the my look of adoration had changed to one that said, "Oh dear, I've married a madman." He explained that he was merely pulling up the "bad grass," the broad bladed grass that wasn't soft and nice under your feet.

I nodded knowingly, and filed that under cute quirks. I admit that I am one of those people that likes to compulsively pick at things and bad grass pulling fit that bill quite nicely. All was fine until our postage stamp looked more like a barren wasteland than a lawn.

It was then that hubby came home with a bag. It was kind of a large bag for such a small yard but I trusted he knew what he was doing, I mean, I didn't even know "bad grass" existed. So, large quantities of Weed Feed and Seed went on the wasteland, followed by daily watering. Soon what little grass we had left was burnt to a crisp. "

"Honey, was that our good gra...?" His look said maybe I should let that question go. Then one bright sunny morning we stepped out the front door and there it was, lots and lots of good grass sprouting up. Now we encountered another problem. You see, living in a condo, we paid "condo fees," part of which goes to lawn cutting. The grounds crew cut all the grass throughout the complex at the same time, which would be fine if our lush thick carpet of good grass didn't stand a good foot higher than all the others. When the condo association came a knockin' we did what any upstanding grass lover would do. We played dumb. 

Soon we moved to a single family home. It had a nice big yard and not too much "bad grass" to speak of, so no pulling was needed. One day the grass was getting a bit high, so I thought would surprise hubby and have the grass cut by the time he came home from work. Little did I know I was about to learn another grass lesson.

Much like the "if it's growing outside the house, it's the lawn," way of thinking I also grew up believing as long as everything is close to the same length that's mowing. So I got out the mower, and with no particular plan of attack I started walking around the yard. I was quite pleased with myself.

When Hubby got home he pulled up, got out, looked around, and with his eyes slightly narrowed, whispered, "What did you do?"

I smiled and said, "I mowed the lawn!"

He shook his head and said, "No."

"Yes I did." Now this was getting a little strange, like when you are at a party and pick up and finish your drink only to find out it was some stranger's drink, and you have the I hope they don't have any strange diseases thought.

It was then that I was educated about cutting grass and making lines. Sometimes the lines are vertical and other times they are horizontal maybe even diagonal, BUT NEVER EVER RANDOM! I was banned from all lawn mowing.

So let this be a lesson to you all, when dating, go on a picnic in a park and casually bring up the topic of grass, you never know where it may lead!

Don't Say I Never Told You.

Lisa

Oh, and for the record, I like multicolored lawns and random patterns better. I still call dandelions flowers, and have yet to meet a weed I didn't like.

1 comment:

  1. and that is why I don't mow the lawn either. I can't do nice neat lines. I end up with odd random shapes that the Husband doesn't like.

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