My meadow and poo.

Here's something fun and potentially shocking - I'm not a totally delusional liar!

In the case of meadow grass, anyway.

Yes, friends - the meadow, MY MEADOW, has come in. Just as I imagined/predicted/hoped/shook my fist that it would way back last year when I defied all logic and flipped over my lawn.

No one wanted to mow anymore. I hated watering a stretch of grass that no one but the neighborhood dogs used and which didn't want to grow in the shade of our street trees anyway.

The lawn in the backyard? Well, that's there because OUR dog loves it and rolls in it and has accepted it as her own personal lord and savior (seriously, you should see her roll around on the thing - they are having a love affair. I'll stop now.), so I let it live on. Bubba mows it and I don't have to do anything except enjoy watching the dog roll all around on it and look blissfully happy, so it works for me.

The front yard though? No lawn. I'm not about providing a lush and high maintenance toilet for all these dogs, birds, cats and wildlife that roam our little neighborhood.

I bet you didn't know that the Silicon Valley area had wildlife did you? Well, it does. If you consider possums, squirrels, rats (barf), raccoons, hawks and skunks to be wildlife. Which I do. Because they poop anywhere they want. Though, in that definition, some of our neighbors' dogs could be considered wildlife. And that guy that drags the shopping cart down the middle of the street while he yells at his big spoon.

You know what I mean.

The meadow though - It's totally IN.

Which was the point of this post, anyway.  Whether any wildlife is pooping in it is beyond my knowledge. Which is how I prefer things. Though I can tell you a grody animal poop story later if you're interested. Think about it, I'll come back to it.

For now though - look:

LEGIT.

I'm sorry folks, but that July shot looks a lot like a meadow would look if, say, someone were to drag their porch out into nature and then park their car next to it.

Thankfully, that fountain grass gets mighty tall, so I imagine I'll be able to take this picture again in another month and all signs of cars, gas meters, neighbors' kid's shitty cars and kitchen windows will be completely lost amidst the wild sea of flailing fountain grass.

Goodbye, neighbor's stuff.

Plus, I planted gaura galore from my mom's garden (thanks for the plant babies, ma!) and that shit gets huge and wild, so I should also be able to hide the hose (not shown)(because it's ugly) that's coiled up next to the porch and, HEY, most of the porch itself because whoopsy I planted a lot of gaura and also a Hot Lips salvia by the front step there and, well, both of those plants are low-water monsters.

They live to grow! They live to attract pollinators! They live to tickle your legs when you walk by! They live to invade every space around you with their nefarious seeds! They barely need water and don't care if you step on them in your heels! It's a good time.

All of this has seen the horrors of 4 inch heels and lived to tell the tale.

So, yes, I've planted things in addition to the grass plugs that like to grow big and strong without the assistance of regular watering and also like to reseed with abandon so that every year I don't have to go through the hamstring and back breaking agony that I did last fall right before I ran a half marathon.

Bad planning.

Also fun was when I decided last weekend that I would hand prune our Japanese maple. Yeah. Because that's a good thing for someone without any experience to do when all they have is the vague direction of an creepy arborist with questionable credentials.

"Just prune it the way you want it to look."

"And don't use shears. Just your hands."

"And don't cut the top branch."

Oooooooookaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Does it look normal? You decide. I mean, it's going to look how it looks now, because I have no control over how the thing grows, obviously, but maybe just tell me if you know anything about pruning Japanese maples that's more helpful than, "Just make it look the way you want it to look".

Not helpful. Can you imagine getting directions from this jackass? "Just drive the car to where you want to go."

Thanks, asshole.

Anyway, this post is derailing from its original purpose of telling you guys that the idea to scrape up the lawn, flip it over and plant grass plugs and wildflowers in it in order to create a personal low-water meadow is totally working.

And also Bubba has given me the thumbs up on getting a nice big stone to put out there so that, when it rains, a little water collects and creates a natural water feature for, like, the shitting anywhere birds and such. Fun!

So, for that grody poo story: (You thought about this, yes?)

Once upon a time I was standing on our brand newly minted front porch with Bubba and the contractor, saying our farewells and high-fiving ourselves on a porch that was in no way a result of our own handiwork, when I got a whiff of something FOUL.

Like Poo Foul.

It smelled like poo.

So, I checked my shoes, ever so inconspicuously I assure you, and found nothing. I tried peering under Bubba's shoes and saw nothing. I started to think maybe our awesome contractor had wandered through something Foul but saw no evidence of that either. And then the whiff hit me again.

Definitely poo.

And then, because I was standing on the porch where there was light and the whiff was coming from the yard, where there was no light, I squinted my eyes against the light and followed my nose ever so carefully toward the stench only to find that someone had:

A. Let their dog walk all the way up to our porch, even though it's plenty far from the sidewalk to make this totally inappropriate

B. Then let their dog take a monster dump IN THE MIDDLE OF ONE OF MY PLANTS

and then,

C. Not pick it up at all so that it could sit there and smolder in the warm springtime weather.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, nice.

So, as we were celebrating the conclusion of our porch and the aliveness of our yard, a giant poo wafted in and ruined the moment.

Grody.

But perhaps I will have the last laugh now that the yard has grown in to the point where I can have wildlife hiding out and waiting to pounce on the no-poo-picking-up owner and their giant-poo-pile-making dog.

Do you think I can entice a bobcat to come hide in my yard? They do live around here somewhere.