This past April, I had a similar epiphany to the one expressed by this writer:
The Lawn Racket, by Stan Cox
In the theme of keeping wildness, I neglected to do what my next-door and across-the-street neighbors were doing, namely going out every two days and running the noisy lawnmower, at times with dust flying in their wake. I wish they realized just how stupid they looked. Maybe it was in protest, maybe I just got fed up with the price of gasoline, maybe I decided it was high time I put theory into practice, but I refused to mow the lawn to shreds with a noisy, wasteful gas-powered engine. Instead, I went out and got a scythe. I go out about once a week or so and work for about 2 hours, sometimes I do it for a few days in a row, as I feel like it. I am not committed to making the lawn look manicured, just keeping the weeds at bay --and weeds, in my book, are not necessarily a bad thing if they have flowers and don't make me sneeze! Sometimes I pull out the reel mower if I'm feeling especially neat and orderly, but honestly, the yard looks happier, and I am proud to say not one molecule of gasoline exhaust has littered the air about the place this year.
Several summer months later, my upper arms are less flabby, my waist continues whittled, and I do not contribute to the unnecessary noise of the neighborhood. Much to be desired in the rural countryside, where bluebirds, warblers, and wrens flit in the trees and the sigh of the wind is music to the ears.
2 comments:
Yes you are so right-- and I am inspired to do the same!
LBP
I much prefer a wild yard to the neatly manicured ones... I like green, but some people just have grass that's too much green... too uniform and too neat... I'm glad my parents don't get crazy about keeping the yard looking perfectly green all summer like some of the neighbors do. We never water it, never fertilize, never kill the weeds... The front yard has patches of green and brown at any given time. Overall, grass is green in the spring and early summer, turns brown in August as the heat and lack of water gets to be too much for it, then green again in September and gradually goes brown for the cold season as October creeps on by. We have a lawn guy come once a week in the summer and once every few weeks in the winter, just because the yard is so big and if we let the weeds grow waist high (like they very quickly would), we'd have rattle snakes attracted to the house, and we don't need any more of those than we've already got.
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