(no subject)
My comment on dandelions yesterday brought out a slew of people commenting about loving them, too. I knew you people were my friends for a reason!
Instead of telling this story in a response to every comment, I am putting it in as a post for all to enjoy (I only mention this as I tend to try to respond to people when they post in my journal and, now, pretty much all of yesterday's posts will go unanswered).
Anyway, dorothy_parka mentioned her mother leaving her garden unmanicured and allowing things like dandelions to grow. It reminded me of a story my friend Carol told me about when she and her mad-scientist (okay, Wayne State Chemistry professor; but if you'd ever met Martin, you'd understand the designation) husband moved to Michigan from California. The bought a house on what is now an historically preserved neighborhood. When spring came, they were thrilled with all of the lush green growth and the wild flowers that sprang up in their yard, especially in comparison to the dusty dry fields they were used to from California. So, they let nature take its course, thrilling to see the cycle of dandelions and wild geraniums followed by a parade of Michigan's summer wild flowers.
By mid-summer, the block association was sending them certified letters demanding that they clean up their "weed-infested lot" and were told that they would be turned into the city for neglecting their property and being a neighborhood eye-sore if they did not. It was at that moment that Carol realized how much she and her neighbors did not see eye to eye on what was beautiful when it came to nature.
Stencil and I have some of the same problems here. A few summers ago, we allowed the queen-anne's-lace that comes up in our yard go to bloom, as it had been a very dry summer and much of what we planted in our flower beds had retreated into bloomless drought-mode. After about a week, one of our neighbors (anonymous coward) turn us into the "rat patrol." Yes, apparently in the manicured-lawned world of suburbia, allowing a few "weeds" to bloom in your yard means you are harboring rats.
The rat patrol inspector came, told us to clean up a pile of brush we had made in a corner of our yard and told us we didn't have rats. Gee, you think? He seemed annoyed by the entire thing.
Rats, and yard "blight," have become a real political hotbed in our city. The mayor and the city council have been having ugly public debates about it for years now. It's crazy. And stupid. All that it has really managed to do is scared a bunch of pensioners into thinking that rats are hiding under ever leaf in their yards.
And queen-annes-lace can hide a whole nest of the vermin, to be sure.
Instead of telling this story in a response to every comment, I am putting it in as a post for all to enjoy (I only mention this as I tend to try to respond to people when they post in my journal and, now, pretty much all of yesterday's posts will go unanswered).
Anyway, dorothy_parka mentioned her mother leaving her garden unmanicured and allowing things like dandelions to grow. It reminded me of a story my friend Carol told me about when she and her mad-scientist (okay, Wayne State Chemistry professor; but if you'd ever met Martin, you'd understand the designation) husband moved to Michigan from California. The bought a house on what is now an historically preserved neighborhood. When spring came, they were thrilled with all of the lush green growth and the wild flowers that sprang up in their yard, especially in comparison to the dusty dry fields they were used to from California. So, they let nature take its course, thrilling to see the cycle of dandelions and wild geraniums followed by a parade of Michigan's summer wild flowers.
By mid-summer, the block association was sending them certified letters demanding that they clean up their "weed-infested lot" and were told that they would be turned into the city for neglecting their property and being a neighborhood eye-sore if they did not. It was at that moment that Carol realized how much she and her neighbors did not see eye to eye on what was beautiful when it came to nature.
Stencil and I have some of the same problems here. A few summers ago, we allowed the queen-anne's-lace that comes up in our yard go to bloom, as it had been a very dry summer and much of what we planted in our flower beds had retreated into bloomless drought-mode. After about a week, one of our neighbors (anonymous coward) turn us into the "rat patrol." Yes, apparently in the manicured-lawned world of suburbia, allowing a few "weeds" to bloom in your yard means you are harboring rats.
The rat patrol inspector came, told us to clean up a pile of brush we had made in a corner of our yard and told us we didn't have rats. Gee, you think? He seemed annoyed by the entire thing.
Rats, and yard "blight," have become a real political hotbed in our city. The mayor and the city council have been having ugly public debates about it for years now. It's crazy. And stupid. All that it has really managed to do is scared a bunch of pensioners into thinking that rats are hiding under ever leaf in their yards.
And queen-annes-lace can hide a whole nest of the vermin, to be sure.