Facts about Grass

***this post has nothing to do with drug use. if that is your interest- move on!***

Definition of grass:

California - monocotyledonous green plants usually covering front yard area. sometimes not allowed due to drought. soft and good smelling. require taming by lawn mower every couple of weeks. fun to lie down on in the shade on a hot day.

Oklahoma - monocotyledonous green plants found everywhere. grow pretty much year round except in coldest temperatures. spiky and smell like garlic. require intense battling by lawn mower, weed eater and other instruments multiple times a week. filled with bugs: ticks, fleas, chiggers etc.
In California grass seemed to be fairly innocuous. If your dad put it down on your list of chores for the summer you found some neighbor boy to do it for you. It took him 5 - 10 minutes.

Here in Oklahoma grass is a top 10 concern all summer. The following are some of my facts/stories about grass, learned since living in OK.

1. It was here I was introduced to riding lawn mowers. Regular people have them here. We have one. It's like a baby tractor. I had started doing our lawn pretty often last summer until I realized how much Nate loved doing it. It's like yoga for him- very relaxing. Plus I kept hitting stuff and breaking the mower.

2. I have the unusual ability of being able to find buried treasure and trash by going over any area with a lawn mower. It doesn't matter that Nate has gone over that exact same area 50 times at the same blade height and never hit anything- I can find it and get it wedged in the blades of our mower. It's a talent.

3. We have an entire demolished house and torn apart car in our back yard whose pieces are 3 feet underground when Nate mows and sticking 6 inches out of the ground when I mow.

4. Dogs are strangely unconcerned by the lawn mower. They will attack the vacuum, eat the hose and bark at sinister old ladies and children walking outside the fence but will not move out of the way of a lawn mower coming toward the shady spot they're laying in.

5. Once when we went on vacation for 10 days we received a notice from the city that our grass was too long and a neighbor had complained. We live in a very old house across the street form another really old house that's falling apart and a trailer. Up the street there are trailers. Across the other street is a horse field. For real??? What, we were bringing down the value of the neighbor hood with our 4 inch high grass???

6. People in Oklahoma keep their grass freakishly short. Short enough you see dirt through it. Why?

7. My first summer in Oklahoma I had to be consistently covered in bug repellent to even walk out in the grass for a minute. Okie grass bugs love Cali blood...

8. Last week Nate and I were cleaning up the yard. He was mowing and I was cleaning out and then refilling the dog pool. Normally when Nate has the hose he tortures the dogs by spraying them. He also tries to spray me. For once I had the upper hand. He was at my mercy... So I sprayed the dogs and then aimed at him- not sure if I was going to actually spray him or just watch him cower. In my joy and triumph I shouted, "I'm Queen of the Hose". Nate was not cowered he just laughed uncontrollably. (If you don't get it say it quietly to yourself)