Feeling sorry about the yard, for once

Normally, I don't care for or much about the yard.

I care enough to mow the grass. But I don't care enough to fertilize, I don't care enough to de-thatch, I don't care enough to water.

Been there, done that, I guess you could say of me. I cared a lot about how green, and how lush and how few dandelions there were in my lawn during a previous life in the suburbs of Boston.

In the suburbs, you and your property values were often judged on looks, so we kept up appearances. Everyone fertilized, everyone mowed on weekends, everyone bagged clippings, everyone raked.

But I don't have neighbors here in rural New Hampshire who judge my lawn. I have trees, and the trees don't judge either.

But it's because of the trees -- and the harshness of the winter -- that I feel genuinely sorry for my lawn this spring, enough so that I will go to some unusual lengths -- at least for me -- to care for it this season.

In general, the winter was tough on the lawn because of the amount of snow that had to be plowed. With only so many places to push the snow, it became necessary to push it more and more and more onto the yard. As the plow's blade push the snow it also dug into the grass along the driveway. As a result I have big scars of dirt where the turf used to be.

The lawn also took a beating from the December Ice Storm and all the branches -- some small, some big -- that came down from all the trees.

The limbs have been gathered and fed into a rented chipper, leaving me with a very large pile of natural mulch (photo above).

But there's lots of more suburban-like maintenance to do. I need to rake away what's left of the Ice Storm tree debris. I need to get some grass seed to fill in the ugly scars. I need to use the mulch in the garden beds that may or may not get planted by my wife this season.

There are times when I want to release my yard back to nature ... just forget about the whole thing, let it assume control over its own destiny rather than have me try to control its will.

But this year the lawn has got me feeling guilty.

So there's work to do. The lawn is too big to fail. Time for a bailout. And I'm the stimulus.