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Brooks Peterson
Monday, February 26, 2001
Lawn Ranger saddles up to do battle
Don't know if you've noticed it, but spring is relentlessly bearing down upon us. Our huisaches, casting caution to the wind, have erupted into blossom, and as usual they are coating the semi-immaculate vehicles in our family fleet with flecks of gold. (Thanks a lot, trees.)
Truth to tell, however, there is for me an undercurrent of menace in this season. Why? Because I know . . . I know it is out there. And it's waiting for me. And it's going to force me to play those same cruel games all over again.
"It," you should know, is our yard - such as it is.
In a sense, I blame myself: When we built our house back in the '80s, we worked with a nursery that generated an elegant landscape plan. We were all in agreement that what we wanted was a low-maintenance yard. Big mistake. What we should have gone for was a no-maintenance yard. We were thinking lush green expanses when we should have been thinking . . . concrete.
Alas, alas: too late. We're stuck with a lawn; nothing to be done. And so as those sturdy blades cast off their winter browns and tans and grudgingly take on the raiment of spring . . . "Raiment?" Did I say "raiment?" What it is, is the grass is beginning to show the faintest hint of green. Or at least un-brown.
And so there was nothing for it but to haul out the old mower and give the front yard its first skinning of the year. This is always a treat, since all the yard machinery - mower, line trimmer, gas edger - has been in cold storage for the last three months or so, and is none too eager to come to life. The new line trimmer proved particularly challenging. (By the way could someone out there pop my right arm back into its socket?)
Say, wouldn't a little nap be just the ticket about now?
Ha. That was not about to happen: The yard gods were angry, and they demanded homage from the slothful householder.
The result was . . . an improvement. That's not saying much, though. In a sense, the yard is like one of those big maps of World War II Europe, with major offensive, feints and deceptive maneuvers under way all over the place.
Will that patch of clover reclaim its space? Or will the St. Augustine throttle it once and for all? (My money's on the clover.) And of course the invasion of noxious growths from the empty lot behind us continues unabated.
There's even an aerial bombardment that begins late in spring and continues into the dead of winter: the leaves cascading down from our cottonless cottonwood. It's a handsome devil - somewhere between two and three stories tall - and it is definitely cotton-free. But it makes up for that by shedding leaves virtually non-stop. So in spring we rake up those babies.
All this, however, is nothing more than a warm-up for the real horrors - out back, out of sight, mercifully, behind the wood fence.
Now, we've always had trouble with weeds in back, but this year it got to the point that we were fearful of venturing out there. The dogs disappeared into the rank growth for days, turning up only at meal time (Some things don't change.)
Mowing was in order, obviously - but even more urgent was the old mano-a-mano thing: Man versus vegetation, one on one. I spent the better part of a weekend afternoon hacking away at the growth with my trusty Groundhog (a kind of ultra-heavy-duty miniature hoe configured sort of like a hatchet). Down on my knees - that's what yards will do you, pilgrim - I hacked. And hacked. And hacked.
I actually made enough headway to let me to run the mower through the growth. It's still not a showplace, but now it does look like something that might once have been a yard. (Still gotta do something about that palm shrub that collapsed . . . and the volunteer Chinese tallow that sprouted in the flower bed and is well on its way to becoming a sequoia . . . )
The issue still hangs in the balance - and from what I hear, the smart money isn't on the Yard Man.
Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com
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© 2001 Corpus Christi Caller Times, a
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