THE SEASONED OBSERVER
Mother Nature's little joke on suburbia
By J. G. Fabiano
Jim Fabiano
What is even better than the air during these first signs of spring is the scent of newly-cut green grass that pushes its wonderful head through the brown and grays of the dead grass of summers past. The lawns do not need cutting before we find their shiny red lawn mowers that had just had its blade sharpened and its oil changed. There is almost an ecstasy building in one's bowels when you add the gasoline and install the shiny new spark plug into the heart of the motor that makes our lawnmower work.
That was then and now is now. I now want my lawn to die. After months of dragging my rusted old machine out of the garage every single weekend I yearn for the browns and grays of dead winter grass.
But, this is when Mother Nature gets us back for throwing things out our car windows or allowing our cars to spew stuff that is destined to kill anything in its path. During the summer months the grass grows, so every Saturday of every weekend one is found walking back and forth across one's yard in order to not become the bum of the neighborhood. When the temperatures reach deep into the 90s the grass actually takes some kind of vacation from its normal growth pattern.
I can't understand why people would want to water their lawns. I yearn for the day when the grass succumbs to the heat and lack of water of the summer. It becomes dormant and allows the owner of the property to take that extra hour on the beach or at one's favorite watering hole.
Then autumn finally arrives with a promise the sentence of having to mow one's lawn will soon come to an end. In fact, during the early stages of September, a chilly wind arrives making the mower think the end is near. This, of course, is a cruel joke. The cooler atmosphere does the opposite. Our lawns enjoy a new strength in that they grow thicker and quicker than ever.
If this was early in the season one would be thrilled with the way the lawn evolved into a green carpet. But, because it is now late in the season, one pleads with the gods to make it stop growing.
What used to take an hour of time to mow now takes three days. If one attempts to catch the grass during this time of year, a giant mountain of stench and rotting mulch develops in the corner of your yard. Neighbors complain about the smell emitting from the heart of this oozing pile of dung. If one attempts to mulch it into the ground, evil piles of wet cut grass is spread throughout the yard making it look worse than if you never mowed it in the first place.
The lawnmower takes a beating during our lawn's second coming. Walking up and down the yard, one has to walk slowly in order to have the blade of the mower catch up with the thickness it is trying to hack. The tuned purring sound of the mower is replaced by a coughing sound of the motor trying to keep up with the blade. If one is fortunate enough to have a tractor during this time of torture, all its blades do is push the grass down only to raise its ugly head as soon as you pass over it.
The autumn grass does something the spring and summer grass never does. After it is cut it oozes green grass blood that makes it look like you just cut it during a major rain storm. The bottom of our mower becomes glued tight with this green permanent super glue. If you don't scrape it off, it has the capacity to burn through the base of the mower as if you dipped it in some kind of acid.
After one mows the lawn in the spring and summer, one proudly observes how wonderful the yard is, and how much the neighbors must envy the hard work. After one attempts to scythe through an autumn lawn, one is embarrassed how the lawn looks as though they just bought a herd of sheep to take care of the grass.
Remember the first sign of green on our lawns announcing the start of a new growing season? After the torture of attempting to control the autumn lawn, I will need at least five months to forget how awful an experience this really is.
Jim Fabiano, a teacher and writer who lives in York, is a past recipient of the Maine Press Association's award for Best Weekly Column. E-mail
Jim at yorkmarine@yahoo.com.
