Field Notes | Our summer of long, sweet grass | Seattle Times Newspaper
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/fieldnotes/2015438803_summer_the_pleasure_of_long_grass.html
Living in the city, it becomes rare to see grass actually grown to the point that it can set up a nice fat seed head. Let alone long ripples in an expanse of tall grass, unleashed by the wind. Unleashed: that's just the feeling, out of the realm of the clipped, managed, tidy realm of lawn. The birds sure know the difference: song sparrows on a recent evening were calling, and the click and buzz of insects snugged deep in the sheltering grasses was soothing as a lullaby.
"Birds love it /
Bees love it /
Only neat-freaks who hate trees loathe it . . ."
I miss the sound of crickets in the evening, little birds singing at all hours. We still have bumblebees here, though. Maybe the others will come back if we leave the grass to its own devices.
Living in the city, it becomes rare to see grass actually grown to the point that it can set up a nice fat seed head. Let alone long ripples in an expanse of tall grass, unleashed by the wind. Unleashed: that's just the feeling, out of the realm of the clipped, managed, tidy realm of lawn. The birds sure know the difference: song sparrows on a recent evening were calling, and the click and buzz of insects snugged deep in the sheltering grasses was soothing as a lullaby.
"Birds love it /
Bees love it /
Only neat-freaks who hate trees loathe it . . ."
I miss the sound of crickets in the evening, little birds singing at all hours. We still have bumblebees here, though. Maybe the others will come back if we leave the grass to its own devices.