The World’s Largest and Most Ironic Green Thumb
Posted on September 16, 2010 Posted by John Scalzi 24 Comments
The last several weeks at the Scalzi Compound have been dry ones, which means that our vasty yard has turned a shade I call “California Brown” — except for this one peninsula of green, which you can see here. And what is causing the emerald fjord to jut into the vast brown expanse of our lawn? Well, we have new landscaping near our house which requires watering, so Krissy got some of those fancy drip hoses, which water your plants without wasting a whole lot of water — unless, that is, you forget to turn them off after an hour, at which point the excess pools out and goes into the lawn, and follows gravity to the lowest point. As you can see, we forget about the drip hoses on a regular basis, and by “we” I mean me, since I’m the one who stays at home. Yes, I suck. But it does make for interesting yard geography.
Look on the bright side – that is a lot less yard to mow.
True that.
any of the timers at http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=water+timer&x=0&y=0 should solve that. The savings in water will pay for it in days or weeks.
Just don’t run it over with the mower, they don’t work at all well after that.
I thought your lawn was just happy to see me…
In California we call it “golden” not “brown.” :)
Thank you so much for not wasting countless gallons of water to water your massive lawn. The intense need to have emerald green lawns despite the weather/nature’s plan for it drives me CRAZY.
It’s grass. It’ll be fine again once it rains.
I half expect Bugs Bunny to pop out of the ground at the end of that green streak and say something about a left turn at Albuquerque.
And here I thought we’d pinned down the location of your septic tank.
John – That’s not a great picture. Why don’t you climb up to the roof and get a better one. (kidding)
looks more like a big green middle finger to me =P
Oh, wow. You win. It *is* worse than mine. Although since I live in a climate that is technically temperate rainforest, it’s the brown that’s ironic in my case, not the green.
At least it’s a thumb and your lawn isn’t giving you the middle finger.
Lived in California for a few years, great description!
Really what you need is a chumby hooked up to some onewire sensors and controllers
it would make a rather nice self controlling watering system.
Looks familiar. I live in Cincinnati so I’m getting roughky the same amount of rain as you. Only thing green in my yard is crab grass.
Aaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!
Yeah…not really a thumb…but it does look like a body part…
You know you could get a device to turn on and off your drip hose automatically. Then you wouldn’t have to remember.
I’m just a few mile south, as are my parents. They’re trying to start some new trees and had a sewer meter installed separately from the water, so they didn’t get charged for watering new sod and trees.
In California, we don’t even have that much land on our block much less our front yard.
I forget to turn off the drip system all the time in the vegetable bed. And it’s half empty right now. So I’m watering dirt.
When do we get to see the new landscaping?
What, you thought we didn’t care?
I would have guessed septic field, actually.
I was going to mention the middle finger resemblance, but after Ron @ #4,
I can’t top that.
@ #21 Mark
That was my first guess also.
We have been under water restrictions for months. No car washing, watering lawns etc…
It is very easy for the bylaw enforcement officer to tell who is not complying.
Don’t you use well water to keep things green? You need one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Orbit-58322-Traveling-Sprinkler/dp/B000NJPUHG
Everyone around there seem to have one.