I am a freelancer in the publishing industry, so words are very important to me. I'm a leftist living in a world gone mad, so politics are very important to me. I'm an environmentalist living in a degrading world, so pick up your damn trash, get rid of your gas guzzlers, and don't touch ANWR, you self-absorbed capitalists!

Do leave comments: let's make this a conversation. If you prefer, you can contact me at friuduric at yahoo dot com.

20 April 2006

A Brief Public-Service Announcement

When we bought this house, our yard looked like this in the Spring:

My mother said, “Get some Round-Up!”
The Consort’s mother said, “Water your lawn!”

Now, our yard looks like this:

Did we toss our environmental tenets to get this dandelion-free lawn? No! Our secret weapon in the War on Dandelions (some lawn enthusiasts may call it the War on Terror) is this handy little tool:

Yep. That’s it. See, if you can stop the dandelions from spreading their seeds or regrowing from their roots, then you’re home free. Yanking out the blossoms is easy, but dandelions have very tenacious taproots that can easily grow back, again and again. Hence, the looooooong stem on the tool. You can get down deep without making big holes in your yard.

Because of the Consort’s expert wielding of the dandelion tool, we have never had to use any poisons on our lawn, which meant that every Spring I’ve been able to make violet jelly from blossoms carpeting our yard without worrying that any of us would sprout an extra nose on our elbow.

While you are pulling the dandelions, you can meditate, zone out, contemplate the universe, compose a sonnet, whatever; it's great "me time". And Impera has found the peaceful half-hour or so a couple of times a week that the Consort would be pulling dandelions a good time to chat with her dad about anything on her mind.

So if you have a dandelion problem, get one of these dandelion tools. You won't regret it. (And you'll save a bunch of money, to boot!)