My Yard Is Looking Pretty Bad These Days

Ever flown into Phoenix, or for that matter Albuquerque?

It doesn’t matter if it’s summer or winter. Everything from the air appears to be a mosaic of brown coloring. If you see any green lawns, the grass was imported from elsewhere. The same goes for Las Vegas. Nothing but brown lawns there too. Some people have gravel front yards and use them for ashtrays.

St. Louis’ high heat and protracted drought is providing the same effect. I didn’t realize we are now in a high desert.

The lawn at my estate in Olivette is looking really bad. Of course, watering nothing but the flowers doesn’t help matters. There are some funny twigs growing sprouts in the yard out back

I finally got to the age and station in life; I could shelf the poorly functioning lawn mower and use a real lawn service.

Friend/wife relented and said OK a year ago “but only two times a month,” she commanded.

These days it’s looking like maybe two more times the rest of the summer.  What usually looks like an August burnout was prominent by late June?

My yard guy is very unpredictable anyway. If I say I need him by Monday, I’m lucky to see him by Thursday…or Friday,  or the next Monday.

Usually, the excuse is something like I forgot, or the brakes on the truck weren’t working or the dog ate the homework?

No matter, these days, the only thing to cut is a pile of weeds. That crunchy sound of crossing the yard is weird.

Limbs are dropping from the Elm trees. Bushes are red and dried up. The flowers wilted in the heat a long time ago.

And to think its only mid-July now. What will the mess look like by August? Lawn services must be dying. First, they didn’t get any snowplowing business last winter and now the drought is ruining the rest.

I miss my yard guy. He likes my cold sodas and is always upselling: “want to clean out flower beds, take out dead shrubs; can I clean your filthy basement.”

I hate to say no to him but the wife pays the bills and she decides mostly what is spent on what.

I doubt a good soaking rain would even make any difference right now. This heat is just too much to bear. And politicians say there’s no Global Warming. Who’s kidding whom?

Maybe by September and October, something will change. My poor yard guy sure hopes so.