Wednesday, June 22, 2011

home owners: day 4

so today . . . we discovered that we have sprinklers in the back yard.

our back yard is kind of a mess. among other issues, it has no grass. as someone who grew up in the pacific northwest, this is strange to me. i just think a yard should have grass--otherwise, it is just landscaping...

shortly after we were married, we visited rollie's parents in tucson, arizona. i'd never been to tucson before. i didn't really know what to expect. thankfully it was spring, not summer, and the desert was in bloom! his mom and dad did an awesome job of choosing the most interesting things for us to see and do. i still remember that as one of our best vacations! but when we got there, i immediately noticed that lots of homes did not have grass in their front yards. they were landscaped, but with a totally different kind of vegetation than i was used to. as the week wore on, i came to appreciate the beauty of rocks and succulents and cactus plants... as long as it wasn't in MY yard...

when we started looking for a house a few months ago, one of the things that was important to us was the backyard. rollie's job has more than it's share of stress, and we knew that he was going to need a place to escape and regain his equilibrium. we even passed up a beautifully remodeled house on a quiet cul-de-sac because it backed up to a school field, and we knew our pups would never stop barking and the neighbors would hate us because our dogs would never stop barking and how restful would THAT be?!?!?!

so we needed grass. or a pool...

no, we need grass. we have dogs and dogs need grass for, well, you know what for. at least i think dogs need grass. but maybe they don't. one of the houses we looked at had a pool in the backyard. i kind of wanted a pool. i don't know why--i can't swim, and i get somewhat panicky if i am dropped into water where my feet can't touch the bottom, and this pool was really deep. (ok, let's be honest here. if my feet can't touch the bottom, i will die. i can't swim. i've taken swimming lessons, but every swimming teacher i've ever had has been baffled by my inability to successfully propel my body forward through the water. i kick. i pull my skinny little arms through the water. i hold my breath. and i go nowhere. i use a kick board, and i go backwards! i. can't. swim. and yet, i kind of wanted a pool...) what we found was that the houses we could afford that had pools usually didn't have any grass--the back yard would pretty much be filled with water and concrete. but i noticed that there were two dogs living in this one house we looked at that had a pool. so i scoped out every nook and cranny in the backyard looking for the dogs' bathroom. i found nothing. finally i asked, "where do your dogs go to the bathroom?" i thought that if buying this house was a possibility, i needed to know! "oh," the owner said, "they just go on the concrete in the back yard, and then we hose it off!"

ok, we would not be buying THAT house...

besides, by the time we got to the garage, i was pretty sure the concrete in the back yard was not the only place those two dogs relieved themselves.

maybe our dogs are just spoiled. they have always had grass, and a doggie door to give them direct access to the back yard. so even though our new house doesn't actually have grass yet, at least there is a decent sized patch of dirt where grass could be (and will be) installed.

although our yard has no grass, it does have sprinklers--some were buried, but they were there. so rollie decided to test them. he turned the water on, and half of the sprinklers shot water out into the "yard." success! he turned those off and turned the others on, and suddenly our yard was inhabited by "old faithful!" water was shooting up into the air and flooding a section of the yard. clearly, we were missing a sprinkler head... but at least we now knew where the sprinklers were supposed to be!

i think this is a good sign. it means we won't have to dig trenches and lay pvc pipe to get water--we will just have to buy a few sprinkler heads and a timer. so i consider myself lucky!

because i can live without a pool, but i NEED some soft green grass. and so do my pups.

1 comment:

mom said...

Definitely grass!!!