War

My next door neighbor is a really great guy.  He's very nice, a good dad, very personable.  We don't talk a whole lot, maybe wave to each other over the fence, or acknowledge that we pass each other in the street.  But he's always very nice.  This makes me wonder if he realizes that there's a war going on between us.  Obviously, its an unspoken thing, but there is a competition to have the better yard. 

I swear that no matter when I mow my lawn, he'll be out soon mowing his lawn.  It doesn't matter if he just mowed it two days ago, if I mow, its almost completely predictable that he'll be out within 12 hours to mow his lawn again.  He can't let my lawn look better than his for even 24 hours.  I'm completely serious here. 

When we moved into this house 14 years ago, the backyard was filled with spindly (but very tall) pine trees,  which means there was very little grass.  The neighbors who lived next door at the time had a very lovely yard with beautiful landscaping and lovely, soft green grass. So already, the new neighbors had the advantage when they moved in shortly after we did.   We took out 36 trees the first year here which opened up the yard to more sunlight, and allowed us to try to grow grass.  The operative word in that sentence is "try".  The following spring, there was a wind storm that knocked over a few more trees.  (Actually, we had two windstorms, 2 days apart.  So many trees were blown down that it changed the landscape of much of the county.)

Here are some pictures after that windstorm. 

You know what?  Only that first picture is after the windstorm.  The other two were from when we had even more trees cut down.  Anyway, it gives you a general idea of how bad the yard looked.  Every time I mowed the yard back then, I ended up covered in dirt because the grass was so sparse. 

Every year I've tried to plant more perennials and add shrubs and bushes to the border to make the yard more appealing, but 3 years ago we hired a landscaper to come in and do it all in one shot.  He did a nice job too.  He put in underground sprinkling in the backyard, fixed the sprinkling that already existed in the front yard, and added more shrubs, bark and edging.  It looked great for my daughter's open house that year. 

Looks much better, doesn't it?  So now that its graduation open house time again, I have to start thinking about sprucing up the backyard again.  Many of those shrubs have grown larger than I should have let them, we need new bark, and the grass needs to be reseeded.  The reason this is all fresh in my mind right now is because right outside the window where I'm sitting here at the computer, I can see my neighbor working out in the yard.  Its 29 degrees here today!  By 10:30 a.m., he had already aerated, thatched and mowed his lawn.  The war has begun. 

It is on buddy.  Bring it.