Here’ a tip: Make friends today with those now-unfamiliar property owners down the road, the ones whose yard isn’t a nice example of good maintenance. And those young tenants living on the same street, make friends with them too, the ones whose rental place looks openly neglected. Strike up a friendly conversation. These are all good citizens who clearly have no interest in lawn care. It’s a total waste of time, and they would tell you this. The fact is, grass has grown naturally for millions of years just like that, left alone to grow.
Then, we accepted the lawnmower, then measurements of chemicals we became obligated to buy to make the cut lawn look healthy again.
These are the cities and times in which we live, along with these good citizens.
Of course the City Council doesn’t care for recidivism of culture. Neglected lawns require
penalties.
And so those seemingly unwilling good citizens can be seen in June finally mowing their tall front lawn with a borrowed push mower, heaving the mower forward, the ticket issued by ordinance taking unwanted effect. Those errant good neighbors are potential good neighbors you’ll want to keep on your good side. Their neglected, herbicide-free and pesticide-free, lawns--often unmowed and currently organic--could very well be trustworthy lawns upon which you might occasionally find clean, organic mushrooms growing wild everywhere, just popped up, as fresh as they can be. Right there in your neighborhood.
You will crave those mushrooms, if they’re edible ones. And if you’ve studied your mushrooms, you’ll know the difference.
Bring a few beers over once in a while. Maybe a good bottle of wine.
You should know them. These are neighbors not interested in lawn care in any form. Nature takes its course.
Cutting grass, after all, is a peculiar requirement.
ATTENTION: Some mushrooms growing on lawns--mushrooms growing on anyone’s lawn--can be toxic. Also, otherwise edible species growing in toxic places can become toxic mushrooms when they accumulate chemicals people applied to their lawns, or if the soil was otherwise tainted by some man-made toxin. There have been people in Illinois who were seriously poisoned by otherwise edible mushrooms growing on lawns treated with lawn-enhancing chemicals.
