Widow (w)rites . . .: Filed Under: "Holy Sh*t, Batman!"

Just had to post a quick (ha!) entry, I am so blown away by this recent discovery . . . okay, y'all know I'm not a gardener, nor do I play on on TV, but recently, because of the fabulous weather we've had for something like eight months now, I've been kind of motivated to spruce the joint up a bit, make it look a little less like a crazy widow lives here and more like a real, "normal," inhabited dwelling. Amazing, how simply mowing the lawn improves that image. . .

Anyhoodles, I discovered a month or so ago that a mutiny occurred in my yard while I had my back turned, and it's been taken over by pirate weeds (mostly dandelions). At last count, weeds outnumber blades of grass 1,000,000,000,000 to one. In other words, there are about three actual blades of grass left in my yard. There is no way in this lifetime that I'd ever be able to even the score with my li'l Weed Hound—it would run, whimpering, back to the factory, with its tail between its legs. I'm not a big fan of chemicals on my yard because of dogs frolicking, this thing called the environment and other stuff (like my ability to breathe), but let's face it: it's a damn mess. I may look into a local "natural" lawn care service that I've seen a few neighbors down the road use—people with dogs—to help me beat back the pirates and reclaim the lawn. But until then, the beauty of a lawnmower is that you can shear the suckers down, and if you stand back and cross your eyes (covering one with an eye patch also helps), the lawn looks a little more like a lawn and less like a weed patch! I am totally okay with optical illusions.

Fairy Tree . . .

But, I believe I've mentioned before that a big chunk of my front yard is ~~a godforsaken wasteland of a rock pile.~~ Excuse me, a "rock garden." First of all, who the hell grows rocks, can anyone tell me that?! Let's give you a visual: my front yard is a slope slathered in river rock, punctuated by a massive boulder every now and then, with a few plants in between, as "the garden." And lemme just say this: Rocks + garden = worst idea in the history of gardens. I loathe this thing. It is a debris magnet, first and foremost—leaves, pine needles, pine cones, sticks—all kinds of random unidentifiable parts clog the river rocks, which makes it look like crap in every season except winter (when it's covered in three feet of snow, and actually looks kind of pretty).

The river rocks never stay put, thanks to the slope + gravity + Rocco tearing through it, in hot pursuit of chippies, which exposes the ugly layer of black plastic beneath, which does nothing to prevent the weeds that it was intended to prevent, I might add. And many of the rocks end up mysteriously migrating not just to the bottom edge of "the garden," but all over the yard—I can't tell you how many times I've unwittingly run over a random rock with the lawnmower, and suddenly my lawnmower morphs into a weapon of mass destruction, gunning projectile rocks at the speed of light toward unsuspecting targets. I'm surprised I still have in-tact windows in the house—soon, I may be wearing an eye patch, not for fun or fashion, but to cover the one taken out by a ballistic rock-missile. But, kids love this rock pile (my niece, Amelia, loves to sit on a small boulder under the tree that she calls the "fairy tree," which I like way better than "weeping dwarf crab-apple," with long, drape-y branches, perfect for hiding), and Rocco can tire himself out by tearing around this "natural" obstacle course, after chippies (an aside: I have noticed an increase in ferocity, in his chippie-pursuits, since the murder of Chippie, earlier this week . . . the taste of blood . . .yikes. Next on his bucket list might be big game: wild turkey. Or a deer . . . ), and it would cost a small fortune to remove it, and I can think of a million other things I'd rather spend that money on (more therapy, for one), so it will stay. And with more therapy, I will come to embrace it.

So, somewhere on the wonderful world of the web, very recently, I read about using vinegar to kill weeds (I am 99.999% certain the tip was posted by my fbook friend, Kathy M, but that .0001% has me worried that I'm not "citing" correctly. Please forgive me if I'm wrong . . .). Vinegar?! I thought? The same benign stuff I use to make a tasty vinaigrette for my salads, and clean my windows and mirrors? What the hell—I have a gallon jug o' the stuff under my kitchen sink—let's give it a try, was my next thought. Less than hour later, after dousing the weeds in my "rock garden" (and likely a few "real" plants, in the process), this is what I found. Which caused me to exclaim, "Holy shit, Batman!" I was shocked! That'll make me think twice, next time I dig into a big bowl of spring greens, knowing the dressing I use might be the natural equivalent to RoundUp . . . I did a little research and discovered that it's the acetic acid in vinegar, coupled with the heat of a nice hot summer afternoon, that kills the weeds (and because it's diluted in a salad dressing, won't destroy the greens in my salad), but it's also non-selective, meaning, if you spray your whole yard, it'll kill your whole yard, not just the weeds (which, in my opinion, isn't a bad idea). Fill a spray bottle with straight up vinegar and use it to zap those annoying random "volunteers" that pop up through cracks in the sidewalk, along flower bed borders, edges of the house . . . now, if only I could find an effective natural killer for the hornet's wasp that was built under the handle of my trash can . . . I'll keep you posted.