“Love is an electric blanket with someone else in control of the switch.”
–Cathy Carlyle

“Writing is like prostitution. First, you do it for the love of it, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for the money.”
–Moliere

From Organic Gardening magazine, written by John Grogan and an example for us all, comes:
‘THE GRASS ISN’T ALWAYS GREENER”

I call my neighbor Pesticide Pat. He’s never met a chemical he doesn’t like. Every weekend he’s out in his yard spraying and bombing and fumigating, all in pursuit of that elusive American ideal—the perfect lawn. I swear, if he could get his hands on it, he’d rent a crop duster and bomb his entire property with Agent Orange just for kicks. Everything he knows about lawn care he’s learned from Scotts and Ortho; it’s only right that he repays the favor by spending hundreds of dollars a year on their products.

I, on the other hand, don’t spend a dime. Mine is an organic lawn, which is another way of saying it is a lazy gardener’s lawn. I cut it when it needs cutting, and that’s about it. The grass clippings lie where they fall. So do autumn leaves; I simply run over them with the mower. Clippings and leaves eventually are pulverized and settle down into the root zone, where they provide free, no-work fertilizer.

I know it annoys Pat to no end that I don’t do any of the things he does and still from 50 feet away my yard and his don’t look all that different. They’re both green, thick, neatly clipped. His is darker green, no doubt, but just how green does a lawn have to be? Pesticide Pat’s lawn, to my eyes, looks unnaturally green, like he hired a band of marauding leprechauns to spray paint it in the night. And when the rains stop and the summer heat comes on, his yard, with its pampered, chemically-dependent root system, quickly wilts while mine hangs in there. Tough love—hey, it works.

One Saturday as Pat and I stood in my driveway chatting, he looked out over my lawn, raised a sympathetic eyebrow, and said, “You’ve got a little weed problem, I see.” “No, Pat,” I replied. “I have weeds, not a problem.”

The truth is, my lawn is a regular United Nations of weeds. The more the merrier, I say. We have lots of clover, which has the wonderful ability to pull nitrogen out of the air and fix it in the soil, where it can feed the grass. This is a problem? We also have lots of dandelions, which add a nice bite to our salads in early spring. Last spring, when the dandelions were blooming, my 7-yer-old son ran across the lawn shouting, “We have the prettiest yard of all! Look at all our yellow flowers! The poor kid still hasn’t learned that those aren’t pretty flowers. They’re weeds. And weeds are bad.

The rock-filled drainage swale that runs alongside both our properties pretty much sums up our differences. Pesticide Pat’s section of the ditch is a moonscape. Thanks to the wonders of modern weed killers, not a single living thing sprouts among the rock and gravel. My section is just the opposite, a wildly jumbled hedgerow of Queen Anne’s lace, goldenrod, thistle, milkweed, Virginia creeper, poison ivy, and other social outcasts. To Pesticide Pat’s eyes, it’s an unkempt mess. To mine, it’s a regular Holiday Inn, welcoming the friendly insects I rely on to keep my nearby vegetable garden healthy.

Pat and I have made our separate peace. I’ve stopped trying to convert him, and he resists the urge to sneak over in the night and poison my weeds. I take comfort in knowing that for every gallon of Hoe in a Bottle sprayed on Pat’s yard, there is a gallon not sprayed on mine. In a chemical world, you take your victories where you can find them. I’m hoping that sooner or later Pat will figure it out on his own—that the perfect lawn is just a state of mind. You don’t need an arsenal of chemicals to achieve it. You just need to wake up and smell the dandelions. Maybe eat a few, too.”

NANCY NON SEQUITUR

AND YOU THOUGHT THE RAIDER NATION WAS SCARY
A classic from the late lamented Ann Landers column:

“An Ohio housewife was doing laundry in the basement and compulsively decided to take off her soiled housedress and throw it in the machine. Her hair had just been set in rollers and the pipes overhead were dripping. She spotted her son’s football helmet in the corner and put it on her head.

There she stood, stark naked (except for the football helmet) when she heard a cough. The woman turned around and found herself staring into the eyes of the meter reader from the gas and electric company. As he headed for the door, his only comment was “I hope your team wins, lady.”