It Ain't Natural

It's been raining here, not quite the biblical rains of last year, but close. I'm not used to seeing my lawn in neon green, sage - maybe, or olive, brown - definitely. But green? It's kind of scary. What's happening to my high plains desert?


I cut the lawn about 5 days ago, during a break in the drizzle. It's already ankle high again. Used to be, I could go two weeks in between mowing, three in August. It took me three hours to mow the back yard this time - it was over 12 inches high in places. In some spots, all you could see was dog ears, not even the whole dog. The Corgis had to porpoise through to get to the fences where they had a path beaten down. A path which is now a mud slide, and the beginnings of my very own moat!

Last year, my neighbor and I shared a ten foot wide swath of water, this year, it's a smaller moat. I did have ducks in the low spot in my backyard, but only for a while. They moved on to the suddenly big lake up the street.



The fun part about the mud? It's sticky. And clay-ie. I've hand built a pot from the stuff an inch under the grass. Of course the Corgis don't care about niceties like wiping their feet and bellies when they come in. The good thing is, when they come in the back door and see the towel in my hand, they promptly stop to get wiped off. The bad thing? Last week when I mowed, the dogs ran around in the clippings and came in the house ... with green feet. They looked like little leprechaun dogs. I'll get a picture next time, I promise.

The hills in Wyoming are alive with greenness. A startling sight. I'm taking pictures for when it gets to 100 degrees in August, and everything shrivels to multi-toned brown crisps. In other words, Wyoming normal.