The good life

This morning I mowed the front lawn and it look s great. There is a story here I promise.

When we moved into our home it had been a 30 year old rental. Not in bad shape but not loved and cared for. The front lawn was patchy at best. We watered and left it at that. I've been trying to revive the lawn with various degrees of success. Each year I work on it little more and some day it will be great. We have very compacted, clayie soil. Short of tearing it out and starting over I have been adding "stuff" to help it along.

One year I made the mistake of using potting soil instead of compost or top soil. That year I had a bumper crop of mushrooms.

Last year I started too late. Just as the little grasses started to come up our watering restriction came into play and it got hot and the little grasses died.

This year I think I got it.

In April we mowed really low and raked up all the dead grass and branches. Then I fertilized, put down a soil conditioner and put down new seed. Then I covered that with a nice layer of compost and started watering and watering and watering. Fast forward to today and when I final got to mow, I was happily surprised by all the new grasses. I had to get a variance to be able to water this much and it will cost a bunch on the water bill but it has been well worth it. Between the green grass and the trees the front on the house stays pretty cool. I'll re-seed again in the fall.

I love to come home after a long day at work, get a chair and a beer, and plop down an that front yard under that coolness. I think ahhh.... life is good.