Inch by Inch

Our yard is a mess. I'm convinced the neighbors, whose lawns are immaculate--and poisonous, with large carbon footprints--bemoan the state of our yard. There are weeds, sticks, long grass, dead patches, untrimmed bushes, old leaves, toys.

I'm going to talk about all but the last one because I think toys are perfectly normally for any family's yard.

I don't particularly like yard work. It's the one thing I totally underestimated about owning a house. I don't like to get hot. I don't have the back to do a lot of picking up, weeding, or the like. I happen to like wild violets and dandelions and clover and ivy. And fall leaves. And bushes in natural shapes. We don't use any chemicals on the yard or plants. We don't waste resources by doing any watering of the grass. And I don't like the gas-powered lawn mower, with its noise, smell, and carbon footprint (our people-powered rotary lawn mower can't handle our bumpy and stick-strewn yard).

And this week in the paper I actually read a defense of my kind of yard. Kent Pierce, of Connecticut, a plant and pests expert, noted, “I’m 51, and I remember that for kids in the ’60s, lawns were really spectacular, interesting, amazing places. There were cool weeds, flowers, clover, dandelions. And there were butterflies.” Well, I'm a kid of the 70s, and while we had an interesting red berry bush in the backyard, it was mostly ChemLawn.

I aspire to an interesting yard. We already have several of those things (plus a great rock wall), including the butterflies--a yellow one was flitting around this morning. As was a great big bumblebee, several squirrels, a cardinal, a blue jay, two robins, and several sparrows. I haven't seen our little bunny in several months, or the turkeys, but I liked their visits (rumor has it there is a three-legged fox, but I haven't seen it). And we'll have more butterflies because I bought the kit where you order the larvae and grow, then release, your own. We just needs some more flowers for them.

Which takes us to gardening. I don't know how to garden. The plants we put in don't seem to survive our neglect or the winters. We have several patches of blossom-less tulips and daffodils. Though, some daylilies, which I was convinced weren't going to make it, seem to be coming back. Let's see if they bloom. And the hostas never go away. I don't like them much but they're hardy so we got some more from a friend.

And now everywhere I turn, I'm being encouraged to plant food. If I can't keep daffodils and tulips going, won't I kill lettuce and zucchini? I'm not even sure how to make seeds sprout. We stood in the seed section of the local store recently and were so overwhelmed and unsure that we left without buying anything. Michael Pollan's exhortation to plant a garden to combat climate change is a powerful idea, but now we need someone to take those of us with no garden experience (those of us who grew up in the immaculate lawns of the cheap-energy without guilt era) by the hand and help us out. We've looked at books but they are complicated and advanced. We're going to start small, with containers for a few vegetables.

We just need to start.

And mind you, while we focus on getting some food to grow, the rest of the yard will just become messier.

And I think that's great.