The cool blades of grass between my toes were prickly, little sticky, teeming with ladybugs.
Growing up, my dad would mow the lawn every weekend in some Sisyphean jockeying for the top spot among neighborhood men.
When people proclaimed their love for that cut-grass smell, I recoiled.
“It’s a warning to other plants and insects, didn’t you read that article?!”
Perhaps they preferred the scent of control.
It’s the 20th anniversary of the lawnmower ban. At 63, the age my father passed, I bury my head in the hill and take a deep breath — the smell of sweet, untouched relief.
— a drabble by Looking Forward reader Caitlin Caplinger
The spotlightAmericans have a great fondness for green, tidy lawns. More than 40 million acres of land in the U.S. are dedicated to turf grass — and to maintain those acres, homeowners apply around 3 million tons of nitrogen-based fertilizers per year and give their yards haircuts with gas-powered lawn care equipment, which spews an estimated 30 million tons of CO2 as well as other harmful s... Read more
