The Grass Isn't Greener

Everywhere you look in our neighborhood there are beautiful green lawns, well maintained and blooming gardens against the backdrop of natural beauty found in the forest and wooded areas which can be found in patches all over.  It is nature at its absolute finest a perfect mix of both tamed and untamed.

That is until you get to one particular house on our street.  I won’t say specifically which neighbors but trust me it’s not hard to tell as they have apparently decided that any yard maintenance at all is too much work.

They have never been much into gardening and while I don’t see a problem with that after all some people just don’t care for gardening they have at least cut the grass on occasion. As each successive summer has come about their yard has deteriorated more and more. This year their yard has been particularly bad and now rather than just a minor nuisance it has become an eyesore.

They are young perfectly healthy adults who just don’t seem to care. In a neighborhood which focuses on outdoor life and prides itself on natural beauty it sticks out like a sore thumb.  The grass has now reached about two feet in height and is made up almost entirely of weeds.  I’ve always tried to just accept the nearby mess and tell myself that it only serves to make our own yard look that much better. 

Except it really doesn’t.   

Since they have apparently decided not to make any efforts at all to control their weeds or even trim their grass more and more seeds fly from their yard into neighboring yards making everyone  else’s attempts to keep their own lawn healthy and weed free that much harder.  

I’m finding it particularly frustrating this year because we have been putting in quite a bit of effort to get our yard into good shape having done a complete over-hall of our backyard.  We also are no longer able to buy the products we’ve previously used for defeating weeds so that has also been a bit more of a challenge.

Why they can’t at least run a lawn mower around the yard every couple of weeks is beyond my comprehension.  I don’t care if their yard isn’t perfect after all most yards including ours are not but still…….well there is that one neighbor actually.

Anyways our neighborhood is blessed with so much natural beauty and it’s quite a shame for it to be hampered like this.  I’ve considered while cutting our lawn just walking my way over and doing theirs as well or anonymously gifting them a bottle of weed and feed and hoping they get the point.  I would at this point actually say something to them about it but how to go about it tactfully eludes me.

So I'll just rant my way through my frustrations and keep hoping that sooner rather than later that they'll actually pull out their lawn mower one these days. Hopefully they don’t read my blog and well if they do, cut your lawn please.

Big Job

It’s been a long week and I’m feeling the burn today.  I’m absolutely unequivocably spent.  Monday afternoon ten yards of dirt was delivered.  Since then every evening has been spent slowly moving the mound to the countless low spots and places in need of fill and am I ever tired.

My backyard has never exactly been well graded in fact when we first purchased this house the yard was in some serious need of attention.  A large portion was in fact dirt, full of chunks of mud and clay. At the time our focus was on getting the interior of the house redone, bathrooms, kitchen, and what not and so we simply threw some grass seed at the problem.

I eventually added my garden and we have made small improvements as time went on.  The grading and smoothing out of the lawn itself though has been something we’ve avoided.  Last summer with such constant high heat and lack of rain the soil pulled away from the foundation of the house and left a big gap in which water pooled and so there was no more putting it off.

If we were going to get a couple of yards delivered to fix the problem around the foundation we may as well get enough to level the whole yard. It’s coming along quite well although I seriously underestimated the effort required to full fill this task. 

We are not only grading the yard but also moving around some of the major structures or areas of the yard such as the fire pit.  I’m also slightly adjusting the gardens configuration, adding trees and plants and removing a very old and very thick concrete sidewalk. 

All together it’s a rather big job which at this point I’m just hoping I get done sometime this year with my back function still in place.   Also it would be really nice to be able to get the car out of the garage.