The Green, Green Grass of Home

Hate it.  Always have.  The fact is that I am allergic to cut grass.  Really.  Not enough to not have to do the job, but it does irritate me.

Beyond a mild allergy that sets one off in a negative direction, the realization that one is doing the dumbest and most boring job in the world is probably the real reason for the feelings.  I state this opinion with apologies to toll collectors and those who read patents for a living, of course.

I also offer my apologies to my brethren in California and Arizona who have no idea what I’m talking about.  The portion of the earth on which you live is not afflicted with such items.  When all your lakes are dry, you certainly don’t have to worry about a lawn.

Let me help you understand.  A “lawn” is a patch of green on the ground that surrounds a suburban house.  For reasons that are not apparent to me, the peak altitude of that lively greenness must be kept somewhere under a height of 3 inches, or the neighbors will become agitated.  “What crop you growing over there, Fredlund?  Alfalfa?”  I wish.  Alfalfa would make a lot more sense.  Did you know that alfalfa has the highest feeding value of all common hay crops?  And that I can look things up in Wikipedia?

I know people who think this is beautiful.
Well, maybe not this glimpse of my free-range version,
but their own boring patch of perfect uniformity.
What's wrong with them?

Since this height is a requirement, one needs to “mow” the lawn.  This entails passing a noisy, smelly, energy-wasting and dangerous machine over every square inch of surface which is not occupied by flowers or shrubs that one’s mate has painstakingly manicured to exact specifications that you, the “mower operator,” do not understand.  But woe be unto the mower operator who confuses these things with the lawn.

The lawn needing mowing consists of “grass.”  This is a low growing plant that has a key distinction existing nowhere else in the plant kingdom.  It is suicidal.  It is always in need of attention so that it can continue its life.  Water and fertilizer and pesticides and TLC (often in the form of psychological counseling) must be constantly applied, lest the grass wither and die.  

This is in direct opposition to “weeds,” which are any plants not classified as grass, flowers, trees or shrubs.  Weeds are survivors, and thrive in spite of attempts to kill them.  Hardy native plants every bit as green as grass, but somehow unacceptable.  Floral racism is what it really is.  

What's wrong with this?
A nice green ground cover.

Why would you want to remove such delicate beauty?

Who would not appreciate this lovely patch of flowering clover?

Dandelions should be classified as pretty little flowers, but they are misrepresented as the scourge of the suburbs, because they usually choose to grow in spaces reserved for lawns as the places to thrive and raise their families.  Violets are weeds.  Maple trees are weeds.  And when you get right down to it, Giant Sequoias are weeds, unless they happen to fit into your garden of shrubberies, like at Blithewold Mansion in Rhode Island.  Seriously...there are redwoods used as garden elements in Rhode Island...but that’s a different story.

Not one of the mansions in Newport,
it's located to the north,
in the town of Bristol, RI.

My hatred of lawn mowing extends backward in time to the day when my proud father determined that I had reached the age where I was responsible enough to do the mowing.  I think I was 24.  Or maybe a little younger.

Dad wouldn’t get a powered rotary mower.  

“Too dangerous,” he said.  

“I wholeheartedly agree.” I replied.  “This job should only be done by trained professionals.”  But dad didn’t buy it.  Instead, he bought a reel lawnmower.  The push kind.  Fully human powered.  I managed to use push that thing around our postage stamp of a lawn without too much trouble, even though I complained incessantly.  And I learned that letting the stuff grow too long actually made for more work, not less.

This design, but made with real metal in the US of A.
What are the odds this one I picked off the internet was made in the States?

Unfortunately, we moved to a new, yet unfinished house.  Another long story you won’t be hearing today.  Shortly after we moved into the trailer behind the uninhabitable behemoth, after the siding went on, Dad determined that the rocky dirt field needed to be turned into a lawn.  And to his good fortune, there was a young boy to toil on this task while he was at work.

The anointed area-to-become-a-lawn was huge.  The house was on a double lot, and soon there was a whole lot of rakin’ goin’ on.  Eventually, one pile of small rocks was carted away, a pile of mid-sized rocks was made into the only stone fence on Stone Fence Road, and a few huge rocks stayed right where they were for aesthetic reasons.  The lawn was seeded around them.

All was well except for one large dip in the front yard where the densely treed side yard drained to the street.  Contrary to my sensibilities, Dad decided that the small canyon did not add character, and needed to be filled.  

Looked a lot like this.

The huge truck dumped the soil near the top of the canyon.  Did I say soil?  Dad got robbed.  It was all sand.  Undeterred, Dad moved the wheelbarrow to the side of the pile and put a long handled shovel in my hands.  I think he said, “Dig, boy.  Dig!”

So I dug and dumped, dug and dumped, and dug and dumped some more.  I never would have finished, but on two consecutive weekends, Dad pitched in and finished off the pile, grumbling about someone less energetic than himself as he worked.

The pile gone, the seed went down, and all was well.  Until it rained.  Then I had to shovel the “lawn” back into place from the street where it ended up.  If thought dumping wheelbarrows was a pain the first time around, my feeling was doubled as I had to horse the wheelbarrow UP the hill to fill the canyon once more.  Additionally, Dad’s work load had intensified, so he was not available to finish the job.  But I finally got it done.

Then the lawn sloughed down again after another heavy rain, so I found myself shovelling once more.  “How many times am I going to have to do this?”  I wondered.  Homer erred when he recorded the tale of Sisyphus.  It was not a huge boulder he pushed up the hill.  It was wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of sand, only to be washed back down each time he thought he was finished.

There it is...post canyon.

There is plenty more lawn...I couldn't get it all into one picture.

Eventually, the grass took hold and the washouts stopped.  That’s when Dad finally acquiesced to get a power mower.  I was thinking that I’d finally have a real mower like most of my friends...maybe even a rider!  But Dad came home with the oddest power mower I ever saw.  I didn’t realize that they made reel-type power mowers.  And it looked like the slap-dab concoction that it was...a push mower with a small gas engine welded to it.  At least the heavy thing powered the wheels as well as the reel.

Looking at the contraption, I realized that there was another card to be played that just might get me out of mowing.  Power is a scary thing, and should be respected.

“Dad, this is an impressive machine, and I’m happy you have provided it, but you know how I love nature, and when you get right down to it, I really don’t want to shred a toad.  Alas, now with this powerful machine, sooner or later, it will happen.  And I just don’t know if I could bear shredding a toad.  You, on the other hand, are made of sterner stuff, so you should mow.”  

“Fine,” said Dad.  I couldn’t believe my ears.  It had worked!  

But then he added, “But you won’t be using the car,”

“What?”

“No, no car.  I wouldn’t want you to take the chance that you’d run over a bunny.”

Damn.  I hadn’t seen the car/bunny gambit coming.  I had to give him credit, even though as a teen, I was completely sure that everyone in his generation was stupid.  Maybe he just got lucky.  Regardless, I pulled the starting cord and headed off over the greenery. Toads, beware!

So while piloting the contraption, I had plenty of time to think about how much I hated mowing the lawn as I trimmed that sloping expanse of green, over and over and over again.  One’s mind drifts while doing a dumb and boring job.  I even wondered how the activity came to be in the first place.  In a nutshell, “Who came up with this crap?”

My extensive research has yielded the discovery of a manuscript dated Giugno, 1511, detailing a conversation in the halls of Palazzo Vecchio (when it was Nuovo) in the Republic of Florence.  

Palazzo Vecchio includes the tower closest to the river.
Field research is such a burden.

Here is the translation:

“Niccolò, I’m afraid this rising middle class will create problems.  They seem to be aspirational, and have some means.  I’m not sure what to do to keep them from interfering with my divine rights to power and wealth.”

“Yes, Sire, this is a problem.  However, I believe there is a solution.”

“And what might that be?”

“Use their aspirations against them, Sire.”

“What do you mean?”

“Since they covet the trappings of royalty, you need only to instill them with the desire to have the basest of them.”

“Go on...”

“Provide them with an ideal, and they will waste their time and capital pursuing it.  You have a staff of gardeners, do you not?”

“But of course!  You have been in my gardens.  The fine shrubs, the wonderful expanses of grass, ...The finest anywhere, don’t you think?”

“Certainly, sire.  They are fabulous.  And now you must use them.”

“I’ll bury the middle class in my garden!!?”

“In a manner of speaking, Sire.  You will divert them from anything of consequence by merely holding up your lawn as the pinnacle of Royalty, and the most excellent symbol of privilege.”

“And how do I do that?”

“Indirectly and discreetly, sire.  What monarch, would you say, has gardens, almost as impressive as your own?

“Why, the Duke of Modena, of course, but not nearly as magnificent as my own.”

“Precisely.  All you need to do is publically inform the Duke, and the commoners will fall in line, aspiring to be as the Royals.”

“And what must I say to the Duke?”

“Simply this, Sire.  ‘My grass is greener than yours.’ "

“That can’t possibly work.  They can’t possibly be such cowed sheep.”

“Oh Sire, you give them far too much credit.  They will acquiesce.  I can see legions of them, not only futily striving for your level of excellence, but competing with each other.”

He pondered and then smiled.  “I’ll do it!  So much benefit for such a small bit of guile.  Ya know, Mac, you should write a book.”

“Perhaps, My Prince.  Perhaps.”

“But leave out the part about the lawn.  That’s just too good to give away.”

“As you wish.”