Our lawn!

Hope the weekend is bringing rest and some sleep to all of you. Here is an interesting story that you can read at your leisure. While we were preparing for our vacation to India, Uma and I (mostly I ) worried about how our lawn and in particular our vegetable garden and flower beds would fare during our absence. The vegetable garden has tomato plants and one of them had just started forming a tomato and I wanted to make sure it got enough water. The flower beds were also fairly sensitive to water. Although Uma's friend Sudha generously offered to stop by and check on our lawn and water it if possible, we politely refused her help. Firstly, it was going to be a lot of work. Secondly, she was going to be off for a week in between (for her anniversary) anyway. So, before we left, I scouted around a bit and found this cheap water timer that would water the most important parts of our lawn every morning for 30 minutes. I was happy with this. We tested it 2 days before we left and were satisfied with the results. However, a day before we left, we had a heavy rainfall and forecast for further rainfall while we were away. We were not sure how funny it would appear if our sprinklers came on after we left, right in the middle of a huge thunder storm. Remember, Padamati Sandhya Raagam and how Vijayashanti's father waters the lawn during rain ??

Anyway, we left for India, and Sudha kept checking on the lawn as often as she could. Apparently one day, while she was checking on our roses, she happened to talk to our neighbor. This old man who stayed across the street had talked to Uma and me a while ago and

appeared to be a nice guy. He apparently mistook Sudha for Uma and asked her when she planned to have the lawn mowed. The weeds in the lawn had grown too tall and he told her that it would end up costing us a lot if we didnt take care of it soon. This was a week before we got back in town. Sudha told the old man that she would inform us after we got back.

When we came back in town, the lawn was a horrible sight. Although our vegetable garden and flower beds were largely ok, the lawn itself was a mess. There were weeds that were half as tall as me in some places, and the sprinklers seemed buried in them somewhere. Creepers had started growing in some places and they clung to our flowering plants at some places. We somehow survived Monday morning and on the evening, I got to work with my lawn mower. My poor mower cried and pleaded with me as I worked very hard with it. It stopped about 15-20 times in the entire process and I finally figured out a way to make it work. It took me 2 hours and 45 minutes to get the lawn to decent shape. Uma and I are still working on removing the weeds from some hard to reach places.

Meanwhile, today we finally went to the post office to pick up a package that was waiting for us since Aug 14th or so. Turns out it was a letter, the contents of which I have scanned and attached with this email!

My take is that this old man who stays across our house, has complained to the Columbus City Council about the state of our lawn! Of course, I cant blame him for it or do anything about it. I am just amused by this whole turn of events and how we own our land, but not really get to do whatever we want with it. It might not sound strange to Vadina as she might have dealt with these things before. I am sure someone told me about this before, but I am just surprised at how soon this issue escalated. My only regret is that I did not take any before/after pictures of the lawn. The lawn is fairly clean now, although we are going to mow it again this weekend, to pick up some of the weeds that have managed to grow back!