You might be a grass farmer. I used to be one.
Oh, I used to farm the heck out of some grass!
I bought a riding mower. I paid for gas and maintenance including blade sharpening, belt replacement, oil, filters, spark plugs, batteries, and the occasional tire. I spent hours each week driving around in ever smaller loops from mid-April through early October … sometimes longer. That’s 24 weeks or more of untold time spent farming a crop that produces zero income. Literal days of my life each year.
Yard work is definitely grass farming. Trust me. I grew up on a farm.
Tiny gasoline power tractors. Fertilizer. Water from rain or a sprinkler system. Maybe irrigation. Trimming or spraying for weeds. That’s farming.
And for what? To have a good-looking yard? Why not leave nature alone, save some money and time, and reduce my environmental impact by pumping less carbon monoxide into the air?
“Grass is good. Weeds are bad.”
A friend once told me, “A rose in a cornfield is a weed; perspective matters.”
A delightful writer, Megan Rathz, has opined in her column, When Nature Speaks, in favor of making your yard into a pollinator-friendly nature preserve.
I changed my perspective and opted to let nature speak.
This year I did not mow my yard.
It was over three feet tall before storms blew patches of it over. My cats got lost more than once before they adapted.
Before the deluge of comments about the beauty of a well-manicured lawn or town ordinances or how I’m making long-winded excuses for laziness, just hear me out.
There is nearly as much surface area of yards in the United States as the surface area of national parks – 40 to 50 million acres. That’s three times as much land dedicated to grass farming than to corn.
Ever calculate the time you spend on your yard in a year? Ever calculate the various costs associated with that grass farming? If your yard is one acre, multiply that time and that expense by 40 million. That’s what America spends to farm grass.
A riding lawn mower runs at an average of 95 decibels. Repeated exposure to over 85 decibels is damaging to human hearing. Sure, you can wear earplugs when mowing. Do you do that? Then add earplugs to the expense list.
My path isn’t for everyone.
I don’t live in town, so I don’t worry about the local Code Enforcement Officer – a dear friend I jokingly call the yard Nazi – threatening to charge me for the government coming to mow it.
I like having butterflies and bees hang out.
I like not having skunks and opossums around. I have seen those critters walking in my neighbor’s yard, getting close to mine, then changing their tiny minds and wandering back to shorter pastures.
If I did live in the land of yard Nazis, then a couple ordinance violation fees a year to let the city mow it for me would be cheaper and less time consuming than grass farming.
I also don’t care what my neighbors think. They are good people. I get along with them. But I don’t care if they think my shaggy yard is ugly.
It’s not ugly to me. I like it.
The time and money I save? Beautiful.
“Perspective matters.”
Grass farmers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your money, your time … and your hearing.
Stu Clampitt loves both wisdom and efficiency. After nearly 30 years of chasing wisdom, he has not caught much, which means he is neither wise nor efficient. You can reach him by email at News@ReadTheReporter.com.