An Obsession with . . . Perfection

Every morning without fail; rain or shine, unbearably hot or unbearably cold, I walk.  Now don't be too impressed, my DH and I have a beautiful Golden Retriever and he is a big walker.  So Aslan and I walk 6-10 kms a day.  Yes we walk a lot throughout the day.  It is not an obsession but my 10,000 steps a day are and there is only one way to acquire them!

On these walks along the streets of Winnipeg I notice a lot of things.  Pretty chalk drawings on the sidewalk, decorative windows, rabbits (lots and lots of them), other people (yes I talk to strangers), gardens and especially lawns.  Winnipeg summers, at least in the eight years my DH and I have lived here, are hot and dry.  This is not at all conducive to lawn growth.  So, I really notice lawns!  Some, these days, are yellow and crisp from lack of water and others are lush and green.  On those walks I marvel at the number of lawns that are regularly watered with the sprinklers flowing freely in the morning and again in the evening.  I marvel for a number of reasons, one is the cost since we all have water meters and the second is the waste.  (I likely won't win friends for that one)  

Water is a precious commodity and yet day after day I watch (and yes get annoyed) as the water is used so freely and wastefully (entirely my opinion).  The Lawn is not my obsession, but I do wonder why there does not seem to be a ban or a limit on this kind of wastefulness in the city.  My DH and I have lived in many places, both large and small towns, and there always seemed to be a watering ban for lawns.  So for my DH and I this free flow is a weird concept.  

The other thing that I've noticed on my walks are the number of totally weedless gardens (poor bees and butterflies)  This mystery has been solved.  We have weeds and a neighbour suggested we use weed killer.  Not the environmentally friendly kind (is there any such thing?) either but Weed be Gone and Round Up so that it will kill everything.  These are used regularly and can be easily bought.  Again we wonder at this because the majority of places we have lived have banned the use of herbicides and pesticides. 

So as our lawn, despite new soil and seeds (and yes watering) refused to grow and is bare spots and weeds, and a perfect mess.  We have decided to go minimalist, the front yard is tilled to mud, a dozen shrubs have gone in, small paths about the yard installed, a little garden left for blooming flowers to feed the bees and butterflies and all that is left is an edging and the mulch. 

Feeling pretty proud of the work that we had done, a neighbour soon deflated the afterglow of all the hard work when were asked about the patch of grass we share (about two feet wide) because the weeds are "encroaching" on the perfect lawn!  Oh the things we obsess over...me and my 10,000 steps and others with the prefection of the green lawn...

You are an obsession, you're my obsession... 

(ft. Nate Dogg & Animotion)