Other folks' ideas of yard perfection can seem strange. One time we had a neighbor that used to employ contractors to weed-spray and fertilize his huge lawn, and mow the grass in straight lines, and he watered it throughout the summer so it was always green, even though his property was out in the countryside, miles from suburbia. How he must have hated my expanse of meadow (I could never call it a lawn) that changed color through the seasons as dandelions, buttercups, hawkweeds, pussytoes, and clovers bloomed in it, and it went brown in the summer drought. And it was never mowed straight. At that time, I had burlap wind barriers all along the foundation plantings at the back of the house, which he could see from his windows. However, I had a good view of all the aluminum pie plates hanging from his apple trees and the plastic windmills set all around the edge of his yard, which was his completely useless attempt to keep deer away. Sometimes, he used to emerge from his house and fire a shotgun into the air to disturb the deer, which was kind of alarming to me too.
