I’ll be honest. I don’t really like having grass. I dislike the weekly maintenance of mowing, I loathe the waste of water, and it makes me itchy so I never even get to enjoy laying in the grass to daydream at the clouds. I do, however, appreciate the aesthetic appearance and understand it’s a lovely thing to have when small children or pets visit. I will eventually remove all grass from our property, sans the small private backyard on the West that I will continue developing as a grassy, shady, English-style garden to relax in.

I use an old-school push mower to keep all the existing grass in order because I love the exercise (gym memberships are for big-city captives!) and I prefer the quiet whooshy sound to the roaring noise and stinky exhaust that a gas mower creates. I can mow with my coffee in hand at 5am on a cool Saturday morning without bothering any neighbors.

In addition to the quietness of the push mower, I also appreciate the free fertilizer the grass clippings offer. If that’s not enough and the grass begins to look less-than-luscious in the spring I’ll set up a temporary fence and let the chickens run the grass for a few days and it greens right up thanks to their droppings.

During this extreme heat in the dead of summer, I tend to let the grass go a bit dry and dormant (as you can see today) so that I don’t have to use as much water nor have to mow as often. It seems to bounce back just fine the following spring.

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