grass – Order up!

Growing a lawn has turned out to be rewarding in many unexpected ways. I would venture to call it therapeutic. Since we are at home more than usual, having a beautiful and inviting outdoor space is a welcome outlet. I can walk barefoot on the earth. Inside or outside, my gaze and my soul is filled with vibrant green.

And of course we share our lawn love with the fur babies, who up to now have been indoor cats. We upgraded them to indoor cats with a benefits package. We’ve slowly built trust and healthy boundaries so that they have the freedom to enjoy the yard. And we enjoy them enjoying it! Let’s face it, no one stalks, preys and pounces like a cat in the tall grass.

And then there’s the nature: dragonflies zooming by; solitary wasps hunt caterpillars and spiders; little white moths flit above the grass.

My favorite visitor right now is the constant stream of honey bees. They drink from my water dish by the dozens! All day. Every day. It is gratifying to help them hydrate in a year that’s been over one hundred degrees daily for several months now. Our irrigation has to fill the shallow dish twice a day to keep it full! Either that’s a lot of bee water or we’re fighting evaporation.

Blue Grama grass, dandelions and a mustard green

We have a happy habitat going in the grass. We are constantly weeding to keep crabgrass at bay while seeding this new lawn. I hunt runners that are reaching; I find the elbow where they drop into the ground and I pop em out. There’s a callous on the inside of my index finger and the outside of my pinky finger from yanking crabgrass.

We look for crabgrass seed heads in the afternoon sun and swift but gingerly collect them for the burn pile.

When I close my eyes at night I see the shape of crabgrass growing behind my eyelids like the flower of life- eternal.

We leave some mustard green for the birds and dandelion too. It’s an aesthetic: rich, luxurious biodiversity.

Piggles (AKA Biggie Smalls the cat) crouches and crawls in the tall tufts at dusk. He pounces on little white butterflies that are flitting all around.