Saturday, April 7, 2012

Really, Riley? Really?

Those of you who are dog owners will likely agree with me that your stereotypically joyous image, slyly promulgated, I believe, by advertising and the media, of a shady fenced yard with a green carpet of lawn and lovely, lush plantings where the family pooch frisks and frolics all day is, in fact, loaded with irony. Next time you see an ad such as this on TV or in a magazine, take note. It will no doubt feature a Golden Retriever.  Think instead: trampled down, brown-tipped grass tufts barely clinging to life. Mud patches the size of Texas. Trodden Hostas laying there pathetically in macerated state. Ploughed pansy beds. Quarried perennial borders. Exhumed daffodil bulbs.

For the first year of Riley’s life, we tried to tell ourselves that the yard wasn’t really a priority. We convinced ourselves that his puppy days would fly by so quickly that he should enjoy his puppyhood digging, chewing, running and ripping up grass. By the time he turned one, he had killed two enormous beds of ivy and dug himself a mid-lawn crater big enough to lie in. Our yard looked like it had been strip-mined.

We might have ignored all this if Riley’s yard was in the rear of the house, tucked away from public sight and scrutiny. What we have, however, is a corner lot. Totally exposed. In a neighborhood with a lot of foot traffic. Daily, a neighbor, a jogger or a postal carrier would comment on Riley’s impressive achievements in excavation. We expected a citation from the city any day.

So, the second summer, we spent a couple of thousand to re-sod the front yard. It was looking good.  But as summer faded into fall, fall waned into winter and winter slid into spring, it became clear that a significant portion of the new lawn was not going to survive. In fact, it was gone. Just from day to day wear and tear, Riley’s path from the front door to the “business section” of the lawn was once again a mud pit. Rain exacerbated the situation so much that Riley would arrive at the door to be let in with paws that looked like he had been to the La Brea Tar Pits.

A drastic landscaping solution was needed. And the idea sounded so good in theory. A stone pathway with nice big flagstones great for us to walk on to keep our feet dry enroute from front door to back. Talking it over with our landscape guy, we mused on the possibility that the path would create a nice play surface for Riley and his little friends.

The path was installed this week. The landscape guy talked me into setting the stones in “chips and dust” – gravel and cement that apparently hardens over time to anchor the flagstones. By the time I was on the scene to inspect the work, the sod had already been removed in a 5 foot-wide swath, way too big in proportion to the yard and way wider than the size of the stones. What we have is ostensibly a gravel path. I looked at it, thinking, “Mmmmm, gee, I don’t know.” By the time it was all done, Ken and I both were thinking the same thing, “Well, this looks like crap.”

But we are rationalizing it and actually finding some acceptance by saying that we had to do something to eliminate the dead grass and mud pit.  Maybe the new stone path will grow on us.

As for Riley? He is totally avoiding walking on it. He’s keeping himself to the few narrow inches of grass left on either side. We might be gravelling the whole yard next year.

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