This weekend, between the rain drops I mowed my yard. I am not the green thumb, play in the dirt, perfect lawn kind of guy, so mowing is a chore. While mowing, one question did come up.
Why, in the week of Earth Day, am I mowing the lawn with a dirty, polluting, gasoline engine, tossing green house gasses into the air, while I am systematically removing the very part of plants that could cleans it from the air?
Sometime ago it was decided by the powers that be, marketing, that every suburban yard should look perfect, with mowing, watering, and chemicals, to create a clean green carpet. Maybe we should put our mowers away and not care about how our yard looks to someone else.
Of course, maybe this is just looking for a reason to not mow.
Now I have considered the go natural approach recommended by some, especially in the Southwest, where the desert climate means you should not be pouring tons of water into your yard, just for Kentucky blue grass. The problem is that I live in the Midwest, near major rivers, where the natural habitat would be forest (which I do love) and maybe some prairie grass. All I have to do is let nature take its course and before long I would live in a nice field of tall grass. Cool! Well except for the wildlife which would move in to stay, bugs, raccoon, opossums, etc., and then I have the problem of my dogs and kid getting bitten, worrying about West Nile and rabies.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't, but what else is new. Maybe when my daughter gets older I'll switch to an old fashion push mower, with no engine, and make her cut the grass.
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