Today I mowed my lawn…okay, my weeds.

Her lawn looks like a meadow,              And if she mows the place,             She leaves the clover standing           And the Queen Anne’s Lace.             ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

I could tell you this is my lawn and you might believe me, but I’d be lying and I would eventually start to worry about deceiving you.  This is my neighbor’s yard (I’ll call him Left Neighbor).  I think it looks pretty good even though there is a good-sized weed pictured here.  Or is that just a clump of grass on steroids?  Those pretty little pink blossoms did not grow there.  They fell from a tree on my side of the boundary.  I don’t charge him a decorating fee. ; )  Actually he’s a fairly easy-going type who doesn’t spend a great deal of time on his lawn; and he doesn’t seem to care that mine is more weeds than grass.

Here you have a photo of my yard (I don’t think I’m allowed to call it a lawn.) before I mowed today.  I just love the little yellow flowers.  I don’t know what they’re called but they grow profusely when there’s no grass to impede them.  Notice they are thicker looking and quite nice at the top of the picture.  I’m thinking that the neighbors have just enough distance to get the best view and they surely must love them.  If you look closely you can see some spots that look brownish.  Those are little yellow flowers gone to seed which means I’ll have even more of them in the next cycle.  Then maybe they’ll fill those other little brown spots which are bare ground.  Given time, Mother Nature will take care of all obvious flaws.

Now here is Right Neighbor’s lawn with its lovely river birch which drops little dead branches on to my side of the invisible boundary so that I have to pick them up before I can mow.  I would prefer pretty little pink blossoms like the ones I donate to Left Neighbor’s lawn.

I mentioned that Left Neighbor is laid back and doesn’t get overly excited about lawns and boundaries.  Let me introduce Right Neighbor who is the opposite.  She pays great attention to boundaries.  Shortly after she moved in she told me one day that I was mowing on her side and I didn’t need to do that.  Last summer she put little marker flags across the yard where she perceived the boundary to be.  Her lawn is beautifully verdant and the part of my lawn that adjoins hers is the most green and lush part of my yard because it reaps the benefit (?) of her lawn-service chemicals.  Doesn’t it look nice?

I don’t mean to make RN sound like an ogre of some kind.  She isn’t.  In fact I’m quite fond of her.  She’s the same age as my oldest granddaughter.  Young!  She works very hard to have an ideal little family and a perfect home.  She is the one who takes care of the lawn–always.  And she wants it done right.  I’m sure she doesn’t want any little yellow flowers on her side of the boundary.  I think her thick, strong grass will choke them out if they try to migrate.

God bless the American Dream and all its dreamers!