the first cut
by John at 4/22/2004 09:40:00 AM
Yesterday, I mowed my lawn for the first time in 2004.
Man, my yard is such a mess. We have so much onion grass that it smells like I'm making soup when I mow (I've googled, but I still don't know if one can eat the bulbs...). I keep thinking about letting the whole thing go over to meadow, except for a path between the house and garden and along the fence. I could say the weeds were wild flowers.
The biggest problem with this is ticks. Ticks like wet grass, and tall grass stays wet longer than short grass. Where I live, ticks are a real hazard because of Lyme disease and a variety of other exotic bacterial infections. Southeastern PA has one of the highest incidences of Lyme disease in the nation. I think it's become such a (perceived) problem because so many of us are living out in the woods and fields now, in the suburban sprawl of Philadelphia and Wilmington, out among the deer and the field mice.
Last summer I was bitten by at least two ticks - both deer ticks, dammit, which are the primary carriers of LD in this part of the country. By my reckoning I got them off within a day of being bitten, and I've read that the incidence of transmittal of Lyme is very low, less than 1%, in the first 36 hours. I never felt any symptoms either, but sometimes people are asymptomatic until the chronic problems begin. Being bitten by a tick makes me feel violated, like someone has stolen from me. If you ask me, ticks are proof that there is no god (or that if there is one, it doesn't like us very much!).
So for now the meadow plan is on hold. I rationalize that the monoculture (actually duoculture) of perrenial rye and fescue is a poor environment for native critters and beneficial animals like spiders, earthworms, and pollinators. While a meadow would be better, a weedy lawn is not bad, and I am actually making a better local environment by allowing weeds to grow! Not to mention that I am not toxifying or otherwise altering the water supply by using herbicides or fertilizers. And leaving fallen branches to rot where they lay (and hastening their decomposition by repeatedly running them over with my John Deere, thus increasing the available surface area for mold, fungus and bacteria to grow) adds important nutrients to the soil. For now, I will keep mowing and just live with the weeds.
Man, my yard is such a mess. We have so much onion grass that it smells like I'm making soup when I mow (I've googled, but I still don't know if one can eat the bulbs...). I keep thinking about letting the whole thing go over to meadow, except for a path between the house and garden and along the fence. I could say the weeds were wild flowers.
The biggest problem with this is ticks. Ticks like wet grass, and tall grass stays wet longer than short grass. Where I live, ticks are a real hazard because of Lyme disease and a variety of other exotic bacterial infections. Southeastern PA has one of the highest incidences of Lyme disease in the nation. I think it's become such a (perceived) problem because so many of us are living out in the woods and fields now, in the suburban sprawl of Philadelphia and Wilmington, out among the deer and the field mice.
Last summer I was bitten by at least two ticks - both deer ticks, dammit, which are the primary carriers of LD in this part of the country. By my reckoning I got them off within a day of being bitten, and I've read that the incidence of transmittal of Lyme is very low, less than 1%, in the first 36 hours. I never felt any symptoms either, but sometimes people are asymptomatic until the chronic problems begin. Being bitten by a tick makes me feel violated, like someone has stolen from me. If you ask me, ticks are proof that there is no god (or that if there is one, it doesn't like us very much!).
So for now the meadow plan is on hold. I rationalize that the monoculture (actually duoculture) of perrenial rye and fescue is a poor environment for native critters and beneficial animals like spiders, earthworms, and pollinators. While a meadow would be better, a weedy lawn is not bad, and I am actually making a better local environment by allowing weeds to grow! Not to mention that I am not toxifying or otherwise altering the water supply by using herbicides or fertilizers. And leaving fallen branches to rot where they lay (and hastening their decomposition by repeatedly running them over with my John Deere, thus increasing the available surface area for mold, fungus and bacteria to grow) adds important nutrients to the soil. For now, I will keep mowing and just live with the weeds.
