Les Bonnes Choses

Despite the oppressive heat, I cut the lawn this afternoon. Last week brought with it quite a bit of rain, so it's been growing like gangbusters. Here's a question: why is it that the grass along the wooden fence along either side of the yard is the lushest? It's irritating how the thickest, longest grass is also the most difficult to cut. Without my mp3 player, I had only my thoughts to keep me company as I paced back and forth across the lawn, paying just enough attention to what I was doing to avoid running over the extension cord. I found most of my thoughts were directed at adding items to the mental list Rebecca and I have been making for what to look for in our next house. When we bought this house, we were childless, and new to home ownership. The selling feature of this house was that the open concept main floor was conducive to hosting sushi parties. Seriously. That's why we bought the house. That, and it was on a bus route that would let me get to the university quickly -- or at least, so I thought. The bus route map doesn't indicate that the bus idles at a nearby intersection for 10-15 minutes for no apparent reason.

So now that I've had five summers of "tending" a yard, building decks, and planting grass to replace dead sod, we'll be a little savvier in our next house hunt. For starters, you can be sure that I'll be paying better attention to the yard. I'll know to ask questions like, "did you just drop some sod over top of gravel, or does the soil here actually support anything other than the most obnoxious weeds found in nature?"

Bindweed, the weed that I first met about four years ago when I decided to take a break from writing my comprehensive exam papers, has finally made the move to the front yard. I've been waiting for this other shoe to drop for a few years now, so I'll be glad not to have that headache anymore.

Update: in my seething anger, I read up a little more about bindweed. First, I was dismayed because I found that the plant is very difficult to chemically control, not that chemicals can be used cosmetically in Ontario anyways. But then I found this article about a bindweed mite. I may have to save some bindweed in a pot just so I can enjoy watching it die.