On Saturday I was blessed with a good chunk of an hour in my front lawn. Now of course I use the term "lawn" loosely because it lacks much of what a traditional lawn would be. You know: all green and "lush" and, well, just so plain ...

No, the terms "my front lawn" and "traditional" can't exactly be paired...I can guess that my neighbours' descriptions include "ugly" and "unkept" but I continue to rehearse in my head "wait for about 5 years until you see on my front lawn what I now see in my headspace".

It's called naturalization. Yes, my "lawn", or shall we refer to it more lovingly as "frontal space" or "frontal expanse"? The place where my grass used to be. (The grass that took loads of muscle and even more loads of ben gay to remove.) So, naturalization. Basic summary: Naturalization is NOT just ignoring your yard and watching whatever happens happen. Mirriam Webster defines Naturalization as 1: to confer the rights of a national on; especially: to admit to citizenship 2: to introduce into common use or into the vernacular 3: to bring into conformity with nature 4: to cause (as a plant) to become established as if native.

You may notice that nature does not allow one single type of plant (i.e. grass) to exist in solidarity. And while the status symbol of a monoculture lawn has become the accepted way of doing things it is actually a dangerously demanding case of chemical overuse, gasoline-in-lawnmower, time absorbing ecology in which only one single perennial exhausts the soil of its nutrients. Okay, I am now off the soapbox...

I love how Dan Eskelson explains it on his site "Less Lawn" : "Unless you need your lawn for tuning up your golf game, replace at least part of it with native plants." http://www.lesslawn.com/articles/article1017.html

Trendle Ellwood asks "Why must a yard be monochromatic? Why should everything that naturally comes up be wiped out and replaced with just one kind of grass? Who made up these rules?" http://www.homestead.org/TrendleEllwood/Naturalized/NaturalizedLawn.htm

So, moi, with my nonconventional thoughts and odd ways that likely drive others (mainly my husband I'm sure) to drink, or atleast shake their head and momentarily ask "why, why, WHY?". Moi and my time alone with my frontal space. Skulking amongst the periwinkle and flowering dogwood tree and sumac, yanking weeds and generally content.

It doesn't take much to make me happy. Follow the dirt-encrusted frolic with a solid glass of gamay noir zweigelt and life is just peachy. Thank you, Lord, for today's blessings.