All about the lawn

So like I said a few posts ago, I can't write up one entry about the weekend because there were too many parallel, unrelated things going on. This post is all about the lawn. A whole blog entry about grass? Oh, my friend, lawn is more than just a square of grass. As we observed early on, people on our block LOVE a nice clean lawn. Last weekend, even after a long ordeal of moving and unpacking, we decided to pick up a lawn mower on Sun night because we didn't want to piss off anyone with our crappy yard. Part of the motivation was fueled by the fact that one of our neighbours mowed it for us the week before... SO we're pretty sure a neat lawn is a big deal around here.

We decided to start off with buying a gas mower from Craigslist for $80. Jai found a great deal from a guy in San Jose who buys broken mowers and fixes them up for a profit. He apparently had a whole showcase of various types of mowers in his backyard. I'm glad someone out there is making use of the stuff that the rest of us throw away. I feel a little guilty now for throwing away a half-broken pair of sunglasses last summer. There's a pirate out there who could be benefitting from the UV protection of that perfectly fine remaining lens. This picture shows the effect of Jai's mower and manpower on the back yard. Pictures can't convey the improvement over the jungle mess it was before.

I went on my own mission with the front yard, but the results were less visible. I noticed a couple of snails in the flower bed, so Sat afternoon I set out to completely clear the front planter box and sprinkle some snail repellent in the box.

It started out looking like it would be an easy job, but as usual, I underestimated the effort it would take to uproot anything in this house's garden. The first obstacle to get over, was the grossness factor of everything. Snails aren't as scary as bugs since they're pretty smooth and slow (FYI, in my scientific opinion, scariness of a bug depends on its number of legs, number of antennae, wings, speed and size). So snails are pretty benign in these categories. But man, that planter box is FULL of earwigs... I forgot to mention that pincher-things are another scary bug feature. There were lots of spiders and centipedes too. EVEN THE PLANTS were a little freaky. Like look at this picture of a weird bulby, plasticy plant in the corner of the box. What planet is that thing from??

The bugs in the box and the hornets (again!) were driving me crazy so I equipped myself with my weapons of mass insect destruction, and sprayed all around the house. I don't consider myself a sadist, but after an afternoon of running away from hornets and doing my "Ew, ew, ew" dance if a spider touched me, I felt a warm glow if my insecticide spray ever actually landed on a bug. I hope no environmentalists are reading this. Don't worry, I'm sure the army of bugs is much stronger than my wimpy bug spray. So just let me have this one! BTW, that hornet trap in the picture didn't do a thing! It only attracted a couple of small centipedes. I don't know what Mother Nature's answer to controlling the wasp/hornet population is. Should I buy a couple of frogs? Or do birds eat them? If anyone knows how to get rid of hornets, tell me!

After a weekend of careful pruning along the edges and clearing out the box, we had a nice, neat appearance.... that will last for exactly two days I'm sure. :S