Oh, brother

I came home today to the most spectacular sight. It was a miracle. Care to venture a guess? Don't even bother, because you'd never believe it was my BROTHER mowing my lawn. Can you even stand it? What a nice guy he turned out to be! My mom had been over all day helping B with the baby. I couldn't say for sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion she might have coaxed him a little. The thing is, she knows about my street. My street is a street wherein your lawn is more important than your car, your house or your kids. You could live in a silver bullet travel trailer hooked to a rusty, rotting El Camino with no complaints as long as you keep a lush, dandelion-free outdoor space. On this street, your lawn is an extension not of your home but of your soul. I come home for lunch nearly every day of the week, and nearly every day of the week someone is working in their yard here. They're either mowing or raking or planting or edging or bagging grass clippings. I'm telling you it's the third reich of lawn care over here, and I'm the enemy of the state. See, I'm the only non-Scott's-Lawn-Care-touting lot in the 'hood. I'm the the pitiful neighbor sneaking around at 7 a.m. on Sunday mornings frantically digging up wild onions and pulling at milk weeds. I'm the neighbor whose yard has so many weeds that some are yet to even be named within the Southern Living Gardening Encyclopedia. The good thing is, when the grass (or weeds, as the case may be) is cut this short, it's hard to tell where grass ends and weeds begin.


I'm also the kind of neighbor who has the loudest and brashest of flowers growing in the backyard. These little sirens (a.k.a. Blanket Flowers) came up voluntarily in a totally different area than the ones I had last year. Crazy!

Namaste