Lawn Care
The other day, I was hanging clothes out on the clothesline. Baby Daniel was snoozing in his little car seat out on the lawn next to me. It was a gorgeous, sunny day. I breathed in deeply, anticipating fresh spring air--and instead got a nose full of the rank smell of chemicals. I can only assume that some neighbor or other was dumping pesticides and fertilizer on their lawn to make it "look good." Realizing that my little son was also breathing in that crap, I was momentarily furious. How dare someone pollute the air, ground and water for the sake of uniformity in their lawn?
I, for one, don't even think it looks good. Bright green lawns with no plant diversity or bugs or birds are just so unnatural! Sure, our lawn is a bit scraggly, but it's organic, there are lots of fun little animals running around (including evil bunnies that like to munch on my lettuce!), and I have a little garden with flowers, herbs and vegetables, so my yard is just the way I like it, thank you (...except for the carpet of poison ivy way out in the back. Oh dear, I'm just not sure what to do about that. Maybe we'll have to bust out the nasty chemicals after all before Junior is old enough to run around and get into the PI...)
You can imagine my frustration when I am suddenly finding stuff from ChemLawn in the mailbox, addressed to ME, offering "free estimates." I want to know who sold them my information. I plan to write them a brilliantly scathing letter sometime in the near future. When a guy actually came to my FRONT DOOR offering to do an estimate on the lawn, I wanted to say "Look here! I have a new baby and I grow FOOD in my garden. There is no way your disgusting, polluting, carcinogenic shit is getting anywhere NEAR my yard. Stay away from me!" but instead I just looked at him icily and said "No thank you. We don't put chemicals on our lawn." Once when I was a kid, I heard my mother yelling into the phone, presumably to a "lawn care" company representative, "Your company puts things in the ground that kills animals and pollutes the water. I hope you go out of business!" I'm pretty sure we didn't hear from them again.
I, for one, don't even think it looks good. Bright green lawns with no plant diversity or bugs or birds are just so unnatural! Sure, our lawn is a bit scraggly, but it's organic, there are lots of fun little animals running around (including evil bunnies that like to munch on my lettuce!), and I have a little garden with flowers, herbs and vegetables, so my yard is just the way I like it, thank you (...except for the carpet of poison ivy way out in the back. Oh dear, I'm just not sure what to do about that. Maybe we'll have to bust out the nasty chemicals after all before Junior is old enough to run around and get into the PI...)
You can imagine my frustration when I am suddenly finding stuff from ChemLawn in the mailbox, addressed to ME, offering "free estimates." I want to know who sold them my information. I plan to write them a brilliantly scathing letter sometime in the near future. When a guy actually came to my FRONT DOOR offering to do an estimate on the lawn, I wanted to say "Look here! I have a new baby and I grow FOOD in my garden. There is no way your disgusting, polluting, carcinogenic shit is getting anywhere NEAR my yard. Stay away from me!" but instead I just looked at him icily and said "No thank you. We don't put chemicals on our lawn." Once when I was a kid, I heard my mother yelling into the phone, presumably to a "lawn care" company representative, "Your company puts things in the ground that kills animals and pollutes the water. I hope you go out of business!" I'm pretty sure we didn't hear from them again.
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