Thursday, September 3, 2009

Green Blades Be Gone.


Here in Cali we ditch our lawns.
We compost and mulch and sandy loam.
We gravel and stone and soaker hose.
We river rock, re-pot, and ration up.


From the beach, through the desert
and up to the mountains we syphon each drop.
We are the water agents keeping vigil.
Saving stagnant puddles to feed our crops.


We force a futile attemt to top off our rain barrels.
We wait and watch and wonder
knowing that we'll collect not much more
than a stirring leaf stew.


We stagger our sprinklers to go off every other day.
We flush our grey waters out and on to our back yard.
Still, the forecast tells of a very wet winter.
So why the heck are we hoeing to hard?


We visit the grass at the neighborhood parks.
We make it a play date of the lounging and stretching sort.
We roll round, and itch and scratch and sneeze.
We play like dogs, wiggle and chase and bark.


We return to our own former play area
We find a new frontier of wild life.
We look, we spy and analyze this new arena.
We hitch our hammock and pitch our tent.


We light battery torches rather than flame.
We settle in and shuffle about reasoning.
We ready our thoughts for our nightly game.
We slice cucumbers and dip them in "Old Bay" seasoning.

14 comments:

Kathy said...

That was awesome and what great pictures!

myan said...

what a great post!
i love it!
hubby is a landscape architect! i will have to share this with him! :)

Mary said...

Wonderful post and great photos!

Tabitha.Montgomery said...

WOW-what a truly delightful post!

Manon said...

Hi Teri!

Love the post and the pics were fantastic! They don't have lawns in Az either..... love the look!

Shadow said...

my sister in namibia created a desert garden due to the severe water shortages in that country. and what a beautiful garden it was too...

Christina said...

your yard is so lush and green and full of life! cucumbers in old bay seasoning? oh wow, i must try this.

TERI REES WANG said...

Pretend Potato Chips!..
Cucumber slices with "Old Bay" seasoning salt. It is a great collection of only the best spices.

It is good all the way around. Enjoy.

Sam said...

What a beautiful blog you have!

Kellie Collis said...

Loving the beautiful colours of those plants!

Unknown said...

Somehow the Old Bay on cucumbers sounds a whole lot more appetizing than that rain barrel "leaf stew" lol.

drollgirl said...

thank you for reminding me how good we have it here in california. yay for us. :)

TheChicGeek said...

Beautiful! Cactus are so amazing aren't they? I am going to have to try my cucumbers that way too...LOL

Lovely day, lovely blog!

Marsi @ The Cottage Cheese said...

Lovely! I rather like zeroscaping. Other than some sedums, most succulents don't do well where I live. I think we're going to add a rain barrel to our gutter system to conserve. We live in a pretty wet area, but even the native plants in my beds seem to want more water when they are planted where they didn't just sprout on their own.