No More Lawns Please!

This post is more of a rant than anything else. I'm not trying to start some national revolution to get rid of lawns. But I thought to use this time to vent a little about LAWNS!


Currently, my lawn mower isn't giving off enough power to cut through grass. It runs funny and it could easily shut off if the grass is a tad too thick. I've borrowed my neighbor's lawn mower, but his has the same problem! And I truly don't want to buy another lawn mower if I could fix the one I have.


But anyway, I was laboring with two busted lawn mowers trying to cut my grass down. My grass wasn't all that thick, but it was thick enough to shut both lawn mowers down. I actually had to tilt both lawn mowers upward where the back wheels where on the ground and the front wheels were off the ground. This actually allowed me to mow my grass. But this was a GRUELING process, because if the lawn mower shut off, it would take me a few pulls of the string to get it started. Man, I was sweating like hot dogs in an oven!


Thankfully, I decided to mess with the lawn in the late evening when the sun was going down!


While I was on my lawn fussing to myself about these two raggedy lawn mowers, I've started getting frustrated that people in the city who had houses had to suffer through the burden of mowing grass. Really, what is the point of having grass? Yes, it looks nice if you take care of it. But does my lawn give me any food to eat? No it doesn't! I'm basically using gas in a mower to take care of a piece of land that isn't benefiting me or my family.


But I have been thinking about this subject for quite a while: how lawns are pretty much useless. Think about it: all of the land you're mowing isn't giving you any food. Yet, we're still talking about hunger in the U.S.A.


As I look at people's lawns and backyards and see nothing but grass, play sets, or pools, all I'm thinking is how much food those people could grow to feed their family for years to come! 


I was watching one documentary program (which are usually one-sided) about individuals who are struggling to survive and who could barely get government assistance. One family who lived in Montana had a home with LOTS of land. Yet, they were complaining about the little food they could get. One little girl who lived there talked about how she was so hungry that she would imagine that her teacher was a banana!


With all the land that her family had, why wasn't anybody growing anything?? Instead, they were depending on outside sources to help them. They already had the resources to get food: their own backyard!


But the more I think about it, the more I realize that we as a nation have disabled ourselves from learning the basic skills that our ancestors had: the skill to grow your own food.


Once upon a time, there were NO supermarkets, corner stores, Super Wal-Marts or Super Targets, or discount grocery stores, or even farmer's markets! If you wanted to eat, well, you had to grow it yourself. If you don't grow, you don't eat. Simple as that. But now with all the convenience in the world, we have lost that basic survival skill so that if we lose our jobs or any source of income, we would be begging for bread from somebody else instead of growing our own wheat to make the bread.


I've have joked to my wife that if the farmers in this nation go on strike, heck, over half the nation would be wiped out because barely anybody knows how to grow their own food.


We as a nation have become so accustomed to maintaining lawns and making our backyards look beautiful that we don't realize we could save a load of money by simply growing our own food. If anybody complains about not eating much food, one of  the first things I'm going to think about is: "What are you doing in your backyard?"


Since we rent out in a HOA (home owner's association), there is only so much you're allowed to do, and turning your entire front lawn into a garden isn't one of them. And if you don't mow your grass, you could get fined. So instead of using my lawn to pump out some watermelons, peppers, cantaloupes, and tomatoes, I have to labor over a useless piece of land that is giving me NO food.



Heck, the only creatures in the world that benefit from my lawn are insects! The fire ants make their homes in my lawn, and if I get a few weeds, the bees would suck the nectar from them. Well, I'm glad that I could help out those little critters!


Yes, I was being sarcastic...


All right...I think I'm done with the vent. My lawn looks mostly presentable. There is only so much you could do with lawn mowers that don't want to work too hard. 

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