Wednesday 6 September 2006

The Grass is Always Greener

I love this town. Totally. On my way to get gas this morning I drove past a guy out mowing his front lawn. His completely dead, yellow front lawn.

I couldn't help but wonder, has he been cutting it regularly or has he waited til the end of the season to cut his....uh...dead..... waaaaaaaaaait. That's not true! What I couldn't help but wonder was why he was mowing his dead lawn at all. It was hilariously awesome.

(Warning: Rant ahead)
I know some people take a lot of pride in their lawns, but it's a phenomenal waste of water to keep them green. But people don't always see it that way.

A simple example? A friend was visiting from Vancouver this summer and asked why so many of the local schools had let their fields go brown. I told him that it was most likely because they only watered the fields that were in use over the summer. He laughed and told me that was so stupid. I didn't bother pointing out the financial savings as well as the water and environmental savings. I just shrugged.

We need to watch our water usage. All of us. Whether we're on water restrictions (like here) or worse (like Up-Island) we all need to use less less less water. And electricity. And paper. And gasoline. And stuff. And everything. And..... (trails off, ranting endlessly...)

(Rant ended prematurely due to the fact that, really...come on)

So yeah. Rock on guy cutting your dead grass. I'm proud of you. Not only did you save lots of water, you showed great pride in your already dead lawn. Beauty. And don't worry, it'll rain soon. The grass'll come back!

*Wanders off singing...oh the grass came back, the very next day, the grass came back, they thought it was a goner but the grass came back, it just wouldn't stay all yellllloowwwwwwwww*

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

my first year as resident of a house on a corner lot with a lot of lawn and boulevard, i was lawn obsessed, espeically since i'd inherited the better part of well-under half an acre of dandilions.
that first year i watered the lawn like mcdonalds does coca-cola, mowed weekly, dug up and destroyed every weed, and was greenly rewarded. that is until the following spring, when i got my water bill from the city. the charge for water was negligable, maybe $20. but they work out your sewage bill based on that same consumption, and that was close to $400. $400! i lived in fairfield, not five blocks from where they pumped that same sewage, none of which was created by my lawn watering, deep into the strait untreated. everafter, my lawn was brown and weedy, mind you still well-mowed, an hour spent pushing an ancient lawnboy mower across two thousand square feet of sleepy grass was still a welcome meditation.

Victoria said...

$400 sewage bill? OUCH!