My Neighbor’s Yard is Why We Are All Going Extinct
Brad sprays chemicals and feeds the deer and that’s not all
My neighbor, Brad, is obsessed with his yard and I cannot deny it’s a paradise of flowers, rocks, and sod.
I don’t begrudge him his hobby. He’s beautifying the neighborhood, a one-man Lady Bird Johnson!
The beauty comes at a steep price, however: the extinction of life on Earth.
In his fervor to acquire gigantic stone pots, he is Sisyphus, tortured by the endless toil yet chained to his well-defined role.
To create such a wonderful garden of Eden, he brandishes an impressive array of weaponry:
— A backpack full of RoundUp for weed killing — Cash on hand for deliveries of rocks, pebbles, and sod — Large bags of deer corn — Enormous stone pots that few men can lift
His neighbors, The Janes, have a lovely yard but they don’t use RoundUp or move stones rivaling Easter Island heads. The Janes do not have gravel delivered by truckload. They do not feed the deer.
Brad is living, breathing evidence of our extinction as a species. It’s Man vs. Nature, and he’s never giving up.
What adult feeds deer and turns them into pets?
Has Brad never read The Yearling?
It’s the Consumption, Stupid
If only the poor bastard could give up his yard addiction, our neighborhood, and possibly the planet, could regenerate.
Building a yard requires massive carcinogenic chemicals, and he voluntarily sprays other people's yards, too. It also calls for truckloads of rocks, sod, and mulch.
Should I mind my own business?
Yes, but when you have neighbors who leave their bright porchlights on all night, feed the deer, and spray RoundUp beyond the perimeter of their own yard, it’s provoking.
The Janes have a lovely yard on a reasonable human scale without consuming massive resources, spraying chemicals, and taming the forest creatures.
The Janes dig holes, plant flowers, and place little stone bunnies in strategic locations.
Admittedly, Brad is an outlier. He is truly a man obsessed with his home and yard. I know. I’ve taken a tour of his backyard because — and this is exasperating, Brad is a really nice guy!
During my tour, I marveled at the 200 square feet of perfectly trimmed sod, soaked in RoundUp to discourage/mutate the hapless wild plants, AKA “weeds”. The perimeter was surrounded by massive stone pots filled with flowering plants. A tasteful brown chain link fence kept deer out.
The covered back porch has a jacuzzi, swank BBQ grill, and giant television mounted on one wall.
It’s a man cavern, and the words of the poet run in my ears:
“In caverns measureless to man…”
Oh, we are all so doomed, people.
Waste
Brad spends a lot of energy and money on his cavern.
He could be spending it on teaching kids to read, learning to rollerblade, or writing letters to our elected representatives to address climate change.
I wonder how much time Brad has to enjoy the fruits of his labor. His yard hobby seems to be an end in itself because he’s an energetic guy who has retired relatively young.
Recently, he decided the backyard wasn’t working out. The 200 square feet of sod in the backyard got smothered by another truckload of rocks. I watched him shovel the pile of ochre-colored pebbles, fist-sized, into the wheelbarrow and haul them into the backyard.
Despite RoundUp, or maybe because of it, the sod was dying.
It was beginning to show brown patches.
Next time I see him, I’ll regale him with the history of lawns. They only exist because it was the aristocracy’s way of telling the peasants: we don’t need to grow food on our land, losers!
Chemicals
The more rocks cover his yard, the fewer doses of RoundUp, so I applaud his efforts to add rocks. I even helped him shovel the other day, but mostly because I was desperate for exercise and kinda lonely.
When we walk the dogs past his house, I watched out for barren swaths in the neighbor’s yards, because Brad regularly applies chemicals as a service for his neighbors.
As I mentioned, he’s a nice guy.
Am I being paranoid? I don’t know, because RoundUp is odorless and invisible.
The horror I feel when I see Brad down the street with his backpack of liquid cancer, helping the elderly neighbors, is hard to convey.
I could move, but this community is full of Brads.
Final Yard Truths
It’s a hard truth that I have no control over other people’s behavior.
I try to be less of a consumer myself. I recently switched from my six-month shameful K-Cup habit to a pour-over system, inspired by Taylor Swift’s infuriating private-jet habit.
I’m building a Japanese dry garden and we are converting our veggie garden, half-consumed by deer, to flowers for bees and butterflies.
It’s not like Brad has bodies buried in his yard, yet he is the prototypical suburban American male, unable to stop subduing every other living thing.
This won’t keep me from buying deer corn. The way I look at it, in a few years I’ll be chowing down on it, along with bark and whatever mushrooms I can forage. My prospects for shooting a deer, even a tame one, are dubious.
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Jean Campbell recently started her first Substack newsletter to laser focus on getting her book, City of Lies: A Street Hustler’s Omaha Journey published.
