An All Natural Yard - Revisited 



In July 1999 The Star ran my Reflections Column entitled "An All Natural Yard," A recent addition to our household prompted my recollection of that column and so I decided to "revisit" it. I told of a trip I made to Sacramento, California where among other things I learned of what an all natural yard consisted.

At lunch on a river boat restaurant another man and I were visiting with two employees of the public defenders office. "They had a lot to say about the weather and how difficult it was. Then they began to discuss their yards. The legal assistant was having difficulties with his large dog which lived exclusively in the house. During such rainy weather when he walked her she sometimes strayed into the yard which turned to mud, as his yard had no grass.

"The paralegal did not have this problem she said, as she had an all natural yard. Now I'm from Missouri and I thought everyone who had a yard had an all natural yard. It's called grass. But I could tell from the conversation that her use of natural and mine were different. Rather than appear too much of a hick, I thought that if I kept listening, eventually I would find out what she meant. Sure enough, I was right. Her all natural yard was soil covered with pine needles.

"To me the best all natural yard is still good old grass, with some flowers thrown in for good measure.

Okay, so maybe good old green grass is the best. However, everything is relative and I have now come to understand that that Sacramento "all natural yard" is not such a silly thing after all. The reason for my change of viewpoint? Canines! Tow of them!

Our big dog, deCoucy, who lives upstairs across from the Spring Park has his own yard. While we live in the original business district of El Dorado Springs, we are one of three apartments downtown which have back yards. That is somewhat unique in this type of dwelling. Our yard has a high privacy fence around it and deCoucy has his own "park" which he loves to be in with us. Recently he had a new friend come to live with him. Beamer is a black lab/chow Puppy and our vet told us that he expected her to be a big dog, perhaps even larger than deCoucy. He weight over 100 lbs., so if Beamer gets to be his size that will be two big dogs living across the street from the park!

Someone once wrote in another local newspaper that Diana and I were highly educated. I believe they need to rethink that. If that were so we wouldn't have two large canines living with us! While it is great for our vet, the expense is shocking to our budget, however, that doesn't have anything to do with our yard. Two dogs are even more burdensome to the yard than they are to our budget!

I mean, where did all the green grass go? On a recent morning I sat out on the patio just looking at the ... dirt, rich dark dirt. No grass, just dirt. With winter approaching I decided something had to be done. Diana's mother recently had a tree removed and a man came to grind the stump. He left her three "mountains" of mulch. I remembered the lady in California who had the pine needles in her yard and wondered if I could put a Missouri twist to that. So I moved some of the mulch to "deCoucy Park" and presto, an all natural yard appeared. Wow! Like a walk in the forest. So that's what all the excitement is about! 


If you dog thinks you're a great person, don't get a second opinion!



 

Posted: Tue - December 27, 2005 at 05:00 PM        

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