Forgive me Lord, for I have sinned: I hate my neighbors. They all seem to have embarked on a neighborhood uglification program. (All, except the ones to the south, who take great care of their place.)
First, the east neighbors have stopped watering their lawn. Or, the last occupants moved out leaving the kid in charge and he doesn’t know about that watering thing. Yet the lawn care company comes every Monday to mow.
BTW, I don’t care about the stupid lawn - just the maple trees and spruce that some good soul (Royal McConkey?) planted 25 years ago.
Second, the north neighbor Mullan Trail Homeowners decided to rip up the prairie grass they planted in their common area to grow hay, or so I hear. So ol’ Farmer Brown came to town and dragged the place last spring. We figured he’d plant something…but nothing happened. Never saw him again. The June rains came and went, still no seeding. So now we have a freaking desert out back.
Professor Borgmann at UM would say, it offends my sense of rationality. Well done, HOA.
Third, to the southwest, we have the lovely and talented Dino Estates/River Walk subdivision. Nice, eh? It used to be a field of long meadow grass that made nice little waves in the wind. I don’t think they’ve sold any lots since the place was “improved” a couple years ago.
Actually I think we have the excavators (Jensen, of course) to thank for the mess.
Last, regardez the emptying basin to the west, one of three built to control lower Grant Creek flooding. Two months of lakeside living is almost worth it.
…oh, and BTW, the middle flood basin quickly filled up with Missoula’s No. 1 noxious weed, Whitetop. Coming soon to an open space near you.
on Jul 2nd, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Ah, I feel better already!
on Jul 2nd, 2009 at 2:24 pm
How do you get a “green job” when you really need one?
[OK to delete if that was an obscene comment.]
on Jul 2nd, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Keep in mind, Carol, that what you *do* have and which we don’t but would love to, is wide, beautifully empty swaths of land. It would be so refreshing to see the big empty out here but unfortunately, the Cali mentality is: if it’s empty, it must be filled. And fast! Any empty space is like a gauntlet thrown down for developers and real estate folk, as well as an aesthetic affront- we cannot look at *nothing*! Why not? It’s refreshing, it gives a sense of spacial freedom from people in general. And best of all, one cannot hear their neighbors.
on Jul 2nd, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Yeah dana I know and it was real nice until a couple months ago. I am terribly spoilt now, but it’s amazing how quickly things can go to hell without good stewardship. It’s a great idea to let someone experienced cultivate the common areas, because otherwise it’s just weeds weeds weeds, but WTH happened? The HOA president doesn’t return calls so I don’t know.
We’re watering the trees next door from our side. It almost looks like a foreclosure going on. Yet they were in tall cotton a few years ago. Grandma bought the house for them…hmmm.
on Jul 6th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I’m feeling you. My neighborhood has four basic flavors of lawn.
1. Nicely kept, mowed, flowers, standard boring selection but it blooms, I’m happy.
2. Exquistely kept, mowed, awesome flowers, totally not boring, I’m happy.
3. Mowed, that’s it, not doing any more. Even the orange day lillies die. I’m glad it’s mowed.
4. Straight up ghetto fabulous. NOT. Not mowed, not cared for, dead trees and shrubs all over, fences falling down, gutters coming off. I think Zombies live there.
Everyone falls into those four. I’m even okay with the people who just mow. But dang, the other ones? Rats live there.
on Jul 7th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Having nothing but rangeland for a “lawn,” I find myself completely lacking in empathy for you urban or suburban folks.
Sage smells great to me, and the prickly pear cactus is one of the most fascinating and beautiful plants in Montana. I hear, also, that there are over 100 native species of grass in our state, but I seem to have only about 40 or 50. (Maybe I should whine about that.) Anyway, everything will turn brown in about a month, and I will love that, too.
Remember: The West is all about water. Do not waste it pursuing your unnatural fixation with greenness.
Now, speaking of green shoots, can we get back on track here? Has anyone seen a comprehensive article on where the economy is at? If I am not mistaken, we have broken all post-WW II records for an economic slump. So where are the articles concerning this historical event?
on Jul 7th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Eh, too tired to read my posts anymore, Max? I said I don’t give a rip about the lawn. It’s the trees. Someone planted them, they’re non-native maples and spruce but I still hate to see them to hell like that.
AND the common area had nice drought-resistant native grass on it, but they tore it out. There was nice dryland hay growing across the way too where the stillborn development later went in. My only consolation is that they haven’t built single house on it yet.
But yeah here in the Big City one’s neighbors can make or break one’s view.
on Jul 7th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
I read your post, sweetheart.
What I was hinting at was that the whole damn thing is unnatural—this fixation about growing lawns and shrubs and trees. This is Montana, for heaven’s sake.
We tried growing some trees about 30 years ago, and God punished us for attempting to alter His Master Plan. He sent wind and wild animals against our trees and smote them all.
Last week, I was talking with a young man who had just finished building his own house and wanted to do some landscaping. He told me in a miserable voice that the nursery in Bozeman wanted $850 for a 16- to 18-foot evergreen tree.
“Don’t be a sap,” I replied with a straight face. “This is God’s country.”
on Jul 8th, 2009 at 6:19 am
Well I notice the old ranchers around here all seemed to plant trees around their homesteads. For shade and windbreak, maybe? But yeah I’m fed up with lawns but when you have one you’re stuck with it. I like a small lawn in the immediate area around the house but the rest left wild. We have a bad noxious weed problem here that you might not have where you are too. Exacerbating this is the planning decree that all these subdivisions have common areas, which no one really cares enough about. It just goes to hell, or gets planted in some gawdawful bluegrass, which requires sprinklers, mowing, herbicide and all that rot.
As for the trees, the city still recommends a lot of nonnative species like Norway Maple, which require a lot more water than we get here. There are NO native trees in these parts except hawthorne. A little higher up you get Ponderosa pine. Period.
on Jul 8th, 2009 at 10:15 am
About windbreaks, it is true that many ranches have them; however, many ranches also have surface water rights for both irrigation and stock water, thus giving them copious amounts of water at very low cost that can be diverted for their trees and shrubs.
Back in 1978, I knew one old timer who sold what was left of his family ranch (3200 acres) and moved onto a 20-acre piece across the road. The first thing he did was plant some conifers around his new place. Then he spent the rest of his retirement standing in his yard with a garden hose in his hand. He must have pumped a million gallons of water from his well. There is no telling what it cost him. I will say, though, that all the trees survived and are at least 30 feet tall today. Of course, he never lived to see that.
Many of the ranches here in Southwestern Montana have Cottonwood trees scattered around, usually lining the banks of irrigation ditches and creeks. I was told that most of them were originally planted during the last depression by the CCC, and that the trees have a normal lifetime of 50 to 75 years. So a lot of them are dying and falling over these days. The only good thing about them is that they seem to repopulate themselves rather easily. I have several of them on my property down by the creek. They must have blown in from elsewhere. I have watched them grow from nothing into 20-foot tall trees.
Other than the Cottonwoods and a lot of Willow brush down by the creek, nothing other than grass and sage grows here. We have about 4 to 6 inches of topsoil, about 10 inches of rain per year, and a persistent wind. My guess is, those conditions have existed since the last Ice Age, contra Al Gore, so I am not going to fight it.
on Jul 8th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Oh, Max, just because your horticultural endeavors have been disasters doesn’t mean you need to be bitter at the rest of us for wanting to spruce up our places.
It’s not like a box of sticks (or rocks) plopped onto the prairie is exactly natural anyway. What’s the harm in going a little further?
(tongue in cheek, just having some fun)
on Jul 9th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Oh, Doug, I must confess that I am a closet Christian environmentalist driven by an all-consuming vision of a pristine landscape completely devoid of any alterations made by man.
Besides the evil box you live in, every shrub or tree you plant—indeed, every blade of grass in your unholy lawn—is a stain on the perfection of God’s work and an insult to the majesty of the natural world He created.
(Just having some fun. Be fruitful and multiply!)