Woman Jailed For Heinous Crime Of Not Maintaining Her Lawn Adequately

Does this messy yard mean the homeowner
should go to jail? A Tennessee city thinks so.  

The property and landscaping Nazis continue to run amok.

My evidence? A woman in Lenoir City, Tennessee was jailed because she did not keep up with her yardwork, says television station WVLT in Knoxville. 

Karen Holloway was initially sentenced to five days in jail but a judge "generously" reduced it to six hours.

She'd been cited by Lenoir City officials who first gave her a warning, but then, when the lawn wasn't cleaned up to their satisfaction, sentenced her to jail.

WVLT quotes Holloway:

"'With my husband going to school and working full time, me with my job, with one vehicle, we were trying our best,' she said.

Holloway, who has two kids still at homes, says she'll be the first to admit this yard needed some attention. But she feels the city has gone too far by imposing jail time." 

Ya think? Sure,  it's a bit annoying to see your neighbors bushes and trees overgrown, as Holloway admits. You want the neighborhood to look nice, but jeez, is putting a person in jail for a sloppy yard the best use of resources in the fine community of Lenoir City?

Apparently, Judge Terry Vann thought so, but he's not talking to the press to elaborate on that point. Code enforcement and police aren't talking about this either.

Maybe they're embarrassed?

Holloway has a reasonable question: "Why would you put me in jail with child molesters, and people who've done real crimes, because I haven't maintained my yard?"

"I feel like I'm being bullied."

I'm a gardener, and judging from the photos taken when Holloway was cited, this property didn't seem like a total disaster to me.  It was indeed messy. The lawn needed mowing, a lot of vines needed to be removed from the house and the shrubs needed tons of trimming and shaping,  but I've frequently seen much worse, and I've cleaned up much worse.

I bet I could have gotten the property in fine shape in one afternoon.

If the city was that worried about how messy the Holloway yard was, they could have saved a lot of money and angst by hiring some teenager to clean up the property. True, Holloway could have done the same, but still, jail time? She could have spent the time in jail doing her landscaping.

As is often the case with these lawn care crises, Holloway says she didn't really get due process. She said she was never read her rights nor told she could have a lawyer with her.

Holloway offered to do five days of community service, but the judge was insistent on jail. Six hours it was. "This opens a floodgate to everybody in Lenoir city being put in jail for silly things," she said.

There have been a surprising number of people who reacted hysterically to perceived violations of what Were Supposed To Do with our property.

Last year, the idiotic city of Miami Shores, Fla. made homeowners remove a meticulously maintained vegetable garden from their front lawn because apparently bland expanses of lawn is much more interesting, useful and beautiful than gardens.

Two years ago, a homeowner's association in Denver went ballistic because a three year old girl drew pictures with chalk on a sidewalk. Because people had to put up with the artwork until the next rainstorm, which probably arrived the next day. Oh, the suffering!

And on and on it goes.

Tree Must Go. Don't Cut It Down, Blow It Up!!!!

My husband Jeff is no fun.

This is the FUN way to get rid of unwanted trees.  

See, there's some trees on our St. Albans, Vermont property that have to come down.

Some of the trees are dead, others are leaning toward the house, a couple of them are shading the garden or just plain too ugly.

I like loud things with lots of booms, smoke, drama. Which makes blowing the trees up, as I've seen in quite a few videos on YouTube.

The ever-sensible Jeff has a problem with this. He would prefer that we call a tree surgeon to carefully get rid of the larger dead trees closest to the house and shed.

Jeff is fine with me taking a chain saw to any tree that needs to go that won't cause major damage no matter which way it falls. And really, I do find chainsaws fun, so that's OK.

Yes, yes, I know Jeff is absolutely right about hiring the tree surgeon and his distaste for the explosion idea. I'm sure my property insurer is also pleased that Jeff's common sense is prevailing.

But man, wouldn't it be fun to blow up those offending trees? I could advertise it in advance and charge  spectators admission. That income from the spectators would take care of some of the repair bills and maybe some of the insurance deductable.

However, I'll go along with Jeff. Because I'd rather live in a house with its roof and walls intact, with no broken tree branches protruding into the living room and interfering with our view of the television.

I'll just fantasize about the explosions. A man can dream, can't he. And watch fun videos, like the one below:




ve been enamored by the idea of

Another Brush Pile Burn As Dead Trees Keep Attacking Me

Last Saturday, the second half of my immense brush pile at my house in St. Albans finally went up in flames.  It felt so good to get rid of it all.

Husband Jeff huddles in the falling snow while
we wait for my brush fire to really get going last Saturday.dd caption

Unlike past fires, when one match and one piece of newspaper was all it took to get the discarded wood burning, this fire was hard to come by.

It snowed the night before, and we'd had plenty of cold rain, wet snow and damp, dreary weather recently to make the pile wet.

Jeff and I frantically shoved papers, cardboard boxes, more papers, newsprint and discarded envelopes into the sputtering flames, hoping to generate enough heat to evaporate the moisture and get a roaring fire.

After 45 minutes, we finally got results, and off it went.

Brush is always accumulating in my yard. Branches fall in storms, trees die, other trees are just plain ugly. It's a hazard of living in (relattively) rural Vermont.  So the brush piles high.

It's always cathartic to burn the brush away, even if it isn't necessarily the best method to deal with this environmentally. The big ugly pile is gone, and there seems to be so much more space in the yard, even if the brush pile didn't really take up much room to begin with.

When I burned the brush Saturday, a wet snow was falling and there was a chilly wind. I'd worked up a sweat as Jeff and I moved more brush toward the pile to throw in on the pire once the big initial flames died down.

The sweat and the wind and the snow began to chill me off big time.

Jeff had work to do, so he went back into the house.  I stayed and tended the remains of the fire.  It got to the point where it was mostly just the larger chunks of wood burning slowly and very hot.

I huddled by the heat for awhile. I felt myself warm up again quickly. My emotional temperature improved, too, because I'd gotten a good bit of exercise hauling brush, and accomplishing something for once.

For you pyromaniacs out there, here's a quick video of our brush pile efforts last week.

Snow Eater Thaw Does It's Job in Vermont

This morning, when I got up, it was 47 degrees at my house in St. Albans, Vermont as we are on the tail end of a January thaw.  At the same exact time, it was 37 degrees in Los Angeles, 31 in Phoenix and 25 in Las Vegas.

My yard in St. Albans, V ermont at 8 a.m. Saturday
morning at the thaw really got going.

The weather is topsy turvy for sure.

The weather was great here in Vermont for unexpectedly getting things done outdoors

 I worked outside for hours both days, clearing brush, chain sawing unwanted trees, doing general cleanup. That included collecting and disposing of a five gallon bucket full of dog poop left by the Boys, Jackson and Bailey.

I was even able to dig holes in unfrozen ground, in preparation for transplanting some trees this spring.

No good weather goes unpunished. Los Angeles and Phoenix will warm up, and we're told over the next two weeks, three Arctic outbreaks, each with temperatures way, way below zero, are targeting Vermont.

Back to the reality of winter in Vermont.

The same scene in my yard, 4 p.m. Sunday
after the thaw had done its work

A Bit Early For a Vermont Sign of Spring

We're having a January thaw here in Vermont, a temporary break from the deep winter chill.

We had a pretty substantial snow cover a few days ago here in St. Albans, but most of it is gone now.

January in Vermont? A daffodil pops up in St. Albans
during a January thaw

The rapidly melting snow, coupled with the comfortable temperatures, had the added benefit of hitting on a weekend,. This gave me an unexpected chance to get things accomplished outdoors. It mostly involved clearing brush and chainsawing a few scrubby, unwanted trees.

The heavy snow earlier this winter came before the ground really froze, and the snowcover acted as a blanket to keep the ground relatively warm.

That meant a few hardy plants were able to respond to the midwinter warmth when the snow disappeared today. That's why you see the daffodil sprout in this post. I spotted the green shoots this afternoon as I was hauling dead branches to the burn pile.

The daffodil plants won't die when the cold inevitably returns. (It's supposed to be below zero in a few days) But the ends of this plant will turn brown, and not look great when it first comes up in April. I'll probably cover it with a thick layer of mulch, just to give it an assist to ride out the deepest cold of the winter, which will surely hit soon.

My Annual Burning Ritual

It's not exactly Burning Man, but every year about this time, I set the pile of brush, branches and tree trunks ablaze in my St. Albans, Vermont yard. I did this year's burn on Saturday.

Momemts after starting the brush
pile burn, the fire roars

It's the stuff that I've cut away from my property over the year. As any Vermonter knows, the woods always tries to encroach on our properties, taking back what we've taken away when we built our houses.

And since it's been such a dry year, the wood itself was dry. One match, a few sheets of newspaper, and away it roared. In seconds.

Which is why I chose Saturday. The inch or two of snow on the ground meant it was unlikely the fire would spread beyond where I wanted it.

I had a LOT to burn. I had a larger, separate pile of wood from which I dragged branches ans sticks to drag into the fire once the original blaze I started calmed down.  We had cut a lot of dead trees over the past year.

Because of that, I'd planned sort of interim brush pile burn between last December's burn and this year.

I was going to do the interim burn in March to get rid of some of the brush I'd accumulated. I  figured it would be snowy and wet and mushy that time of year, with no way a fire could spread. Instead, we had a drought, wind, record 80 degree heat, and a burn ban. So I skipped the March burn, because I didn't my fire to spread and burn down half of St. Albans.

Which left me with a forest full of dead wood to burn. I swear the pile of brush took up maybe 5 percent of my one acre lot. Some of the brush had to go.

I guess I'm a bit of a pyromaniac,  so I love to do the burn. I suspect a lot of other people like fires too.  Its primordial. Fire is the basics of heat and light. Flames are mesmerizing. Fires are a source of comfort, when we want to stay warm. Fires are a source of terror, when they threaten to burn down our homes, or kill us.

A closeup of my raging backyard burn

As I was pitching more wood into the fire, it crossed my mind that it would be really awful if I tripped and fell in. But I also thought about how efficient this was, taking a huge tangle of wood, and converting it into a tiny pile of ashes.

I know a lot of people believe a brush pile burn is wasteful, and polluting. I suppose it is.  I'm not sure how best to get rid of the branches in a more green fashion. I supposed I could rent a wood chipper, but that pollutes too.  There was nothing usable in the pile for people who burn wood for heat. (I'd already given away the wood that was usable for wood heat)

So there was mixed emotions all around.

In the end after I exhausted my burning desire to burn stuff by Saturday evening,  I still had a lot of unburned wood to go. And plenty of brush to cut yet around the yard. So, I will try another burn later this winter.

For you pyromaniacs out there,  a included some photos of the burn and a quick video of the burn.

Once the fire calmed down a bit, Jackson inspects
my handywork with the brushpile

A closeup of the burning wood

Another closeup of embers from my brushpile burn

Quebec Town Hates Front Yard Garden. Why?

A couple in Drummondville, Quebec, well northeast of Montreal, are having quite a war with their town because they are growing vegetables in their front yard.

Criminal activity: A Quebec couple seen here breaking
the law through the evil activity of growing veggies in
front of the house. 

This criminal couple (How dare they have anything other than wasteful, expensive to maintain grass in their front yard!) say the vegetables they're harvesting have improved their health, neighbors like the garden, and they share produce with their neighbors)

But the town said a neighbor complained, though I think that's code for a zoning enforcement person complained that his will is not being followed the way he wants it to be followed.  Apparently, front lawns in this Drummondville neighborhood are required to be 30 percent grass. I don't know why that rule is in place.

The couple face fines of $100 to $300 per day if they don't remove the garden and plant grass. 

As you can see by the photo, the garden is well maintained, so it's not like the neighbors are looking at an eyesore. And I do think it's reasonable to expect people with front yard gardens to keep them looking nice and neat, and well landscaped.

Not explained in any of the articles about this incident, and similar ones elsewhere in the country, is why zoning departments insist on grass on the front yard and not gardens. Gardens use less water, and better for the environment, and aren't a waste of space like lawns can be.

HGTV, that home and garden design network that shows all those oh-so-perfect houses, notes that front yard gardens can be designed to look absolutely gorgeous.  You might try tastefully arranged raised beds, landscaping and scattering some flowering plants among the veggies to make things look pretty for the neighbors and those hyper-critical zoning department inspectors.  

Don't get me wrong. Grassy yards are great if that's what you like. It's your house, do as you wish. No sense of living with surroundings you don't like. But geez, a garden is a bad thing?

Drummondville officials think so. They are working on an ordinance banning the growing of vegetables on front yards anywhere in town.  Because as we all know, a tomato plant growing on a front yard can lead to all sorts of criminal behavior.  I mean, what if somebody uses the tomatoes from the front yard garden to make salsa or something awful like that. 

The Annual Burn Pile

Every year about this time, I complete my annual ritual of being an arsonist.

No, don't worry, I committed no crimes. I just set fire to the pile of wood and brush that accumulates every year at my St. Albans, Vermont home.  I even got a burn permit for it.

Our dog Jackson keeps a watchful eye
on my annual brush pile burn yesterday.

Actually, there was LOTS of brush to burn this year. I was on a branch clearing frenzy all year, plus we had some storms. I actually had three piles.

I had to drag the material from two of the piles over to the one I set aflame. The job turned out to be a wonderful full body workout.  I would have stacked everyting in one pile, but that one have created such a big conflagration the whole town would have burned down.

I'm blessed with great weather every year, it seems, when I schedule the burn. This year was typical. There was a bit of snow on the ground, which discouraged embers from setting a forest fire in the back of the house. And the breeze was strong enough to fan the flames through the burn pile but not enough to choke the whole neighborhood in smoke.

And as you see in the picture, I had Jackson the dog out there to keep a watchful eye on things, lend moral support, provide comic relief and move sticks though not necessarily to the burn pile, he just like playing around with them.

I'm sure the sticks Jackson left scattered about will feed next year's bonfire.

Korean Lilac Cheers Me, Darlusz

"Matt, you sister and dat husband she got really nize. What dat day leave out dare on da deck,?" asked Darlusz Zabagaiski, the Polish frog who lives here at my St. Albans house.

"They sure are nice. They left me a beautiful Korean dwarf lilac to plant out in the yard," I replied. It's a beautiful gift. It blooms a little later than traditional lilacs. It's smaller, and has these gorgeous dark, shiny leaves with curvy edges. Just a gorgeous shrub.

The lilac will be another step in my goal to eradicate as much lawn as possible and convert it to gardens.

"Where you plant da what you call, Korean lilac,?" Darlusz asked.

Darlusz the Polish frog checks out the
dwarf Korean lilac my sister got
me as a gift.

"I think it will look great on the right side of the driveway, sort of across the driveway from the big lilac I already have. The Korean lilac can act as sort of an echo to the other one. It will also add a nice point of interest to an area that is a little too flat, with plantings that are a little too even, with not enough variety,"  I said, trying to fake some good landscape design chops as I talked.

"I help you plant," Darlusz said.

"OK, but no eating bugs around the lilac. I don't want you knocking it down and damaging it," I said.

"First we have to decide exactly where to plant it," I said. "Darlusz, you're good at placing things in the right spot. You can guide me," I said.

That was a big mistake. I brought the lilac in its pot out, and placed it in a spot I thought would work. "Move dat six inch to da right," Darlusz said. I complied. "No, now up da hill four inches, no a little down hill, to da right....."

This lastest most of the morning.

By the time we finally settled on a place to plant the lilac, it was getting late. I started digging the dirt in the spot where it will go, but decided to come back to it today. The dirt is surprisingly lousy there, full of rocks and a little bit of garbage like broken light bulbs and plastic that the strange, previous owner of my house buried.

I'll dig out an area much bigger than the lilac's root ball and replace it with quality soil. "I help you haul da good dirt here," Darlusz said.

"OK, but you'd better not be as picky as you were today," I said.  We have to get this thing planted tomorrow.

City to Gardener: Lawns Rule

A woman in Oak Park, Michigan is in big trouble for a terrible crime.

She is growing vegetables in her front lawn.  How dare she? How un-American! Doesn't she know that front lawns are supposed to be grass, and you're not supposed to grow anything useful there?

The offending front yard garden in
Oak Park, Mich.

I mean, what if she eats some of the vegetables. Or worse, shares some with her neighbors?  Terrible. She must be some commie. Because the real, American way to do things is to fire up a noisy, smoky lawnmower and blast away at the grass.

And doesn't this woman know that you're supposed to buy vegetables in a giant store with florescent lights that give you a headache, and not grow your own veggies?

 That's why God created supermarkets. You're supposed to drive to a supermarket, fight traffic, find a space in a hot parking lot, struggle against clueless shoppers in the store, pay an arm and a leg for vegetables grown in another country that taste like plastic and then go back out into the parking lot and find your car has been dinged by wayward shopping carts?

What's the fun in getting some fresh air, getting the sense of accomplishment by growing your own veggies, then having a very tasty salad with extremely fresh lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers that evening?

The city of Oak Park is going after this woman because her front yard is not "common." Again, it's supposed to be a lawn, you see.

"I don't know of any community where I have seen a full garden in the front yard. In planning and zoning, we try to put things in appropriate places, said Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski, according to the Detroit News.


So I hope this city jails this woman forever over her shocking front yard behavior. Critics say the city of Oak Park should be spending precious tax dollars on other resources, like fighting crime and fixing potholes.

But go for it, Oak Park. Get that veggie lady!  As it stands now, she could get 93 days in jail for growing her vegetables. That's more than many drug dealers get.

However, if we don't crack down now, people will do even more outlandish things. What will this country become if people started planting blueberry bushes or strawberries in their yards?

We MUST make an example out of veggie lady!

More Summer Flowers

Things continue to bloom nicely around my yard in St. Albans, Vermont as you can see from these quick shots I took yesterday:

Summer Flower

Flowers don't last too long. I'm trying to gradually plant gardens around my St. Albans, Vermont home so something's blooming from early spring to late fall.

But you can't have everything. So I go around taking photos of the blooms in the yard, just to keep the flowers in some respect.

I like the shot in this post I took the other day. A day lily in my yard is misted with water droplets after an evening shower.

Somebody's Watching Me

The other night, I was sitting on the couch at home in St. Albans, Vermont,  mindlessly watching television, when I felt somebody outdoors was watching me.

These pansies on my back deck as viewed through
 my living room door, resemble a boisterous
audience interested in what's going on around them.

As I've noted before, we've just installed big new glass doors and windows in the living room, Was somebody out there? I just felt there were some faces that seemed interested in what I was doing.

I looked outside and figured it out. The yellow pansies in a planter on the deck resembled faces, with expressions suggesting curiosity about me and what's going on around them.   Look at  the pic in this post to see what I mean.

It's funny how inanimate objects seem to have personalities, at least in my mind. Flowers in particular. Daffodils are enthusiastic. "Hi there,!" they seem to cheerily shout as they announce the arrival of spring. Sunflowers are loud extroverts, the life of the party. Irises are friendly old aunts. Tulips remind of me of haughty Champagne sippers. Zinnias are like clots of happily chattering school children in a playground.  Lilacs are warm, heavily perfumed matrons of a certain age.

Yes, I know I'm being a bit insane here. But I guess that's one of the reasons why I want to keep planting flowers and perennials around the house. The more personalities brightening the property, the better.

Dishing About Landscaping

You can use just about anything for landscaping borders in gardens, and I came across this unique one in Burlington recently.

Somebody in Burlington, Vermont used dishes
to decorate a front yard garden.

Somebody used china, yes, dishes, to mark the boundary between walkways and plants in the garden in their front yard.

It's not maybe something I would do, but you have to admit it's unique. It does kind of work, and I like the fact that the idea is so quirky.

Gardens need more quirkiness, sometimes.

It got me thinking about what other things people use as garden decorations. I see tires used a lot, which definitely sends a mixed message.

I mean, let's plant things where vehicles will roll. I saw one house once where discarded green aluminium siding was used as a sort of wall in front of plants. Pretty cheesy. And I've seen flowers growing out of a rotting couch on a front yard, but I don't know if they just grew there randomly or if it was some sort of landscaping design.

A detail of dishes inserted between paving stones and plants
as decorations in a Burlington, Vt. garden

Me, I'm going to continue to use stones, plants and other natural things for my landscaping. Readers, have you see anything odd in a garden? Have you used anything odd in a garden? Let me know. It would be fun to find out how creative people are.

Progress at the House

Sometimes, when I'm discouraged because of a rain out, or a lack of time, or both, in getting things done, like I am this morning, it's worth it to see that I have made progress. As you can tell by the scene in front of my house in the two pictures in this post, I have more work to do, but I've definitely come along.

The first photo shows the scene last spring, when I was trying to build a wall. Next photo was taken recently, as I started to plant perennials and Jeff made major repairs to the deck. Much better.

Makes me want to go out there and do more work, if it would only stop raining. Next up: More plants, and we paint the house a darker green (note the samples on the wall of the house near the window on the right.

Spring in my yard: Ugly and Beautiful

It's been a weird spring around my yard and property in St. Albans, Vermont.

Even as I work to improve the landscaping, bad weather keeps getting in the way, or undoing my work.

A flash flood surges through my yard in
St. Albans, Vt. last Friday.

As you can see in the photos, even as flash flood surge through my yard, wrecking things, flowers continue to grace the area. The lilacs, like the one pictured near my front door, are especially fragrant. Ahhh...

The day after the flash flood, these lilacs
serene bloomed in front of my house. 

All the weird weather doesn't matter in the end.  I keep plugging away, and things gradually improve.

Vermont's Fitful Spring Continues

Spring is always an unpredictable time of year. Yesterday, a drenching rain soaked everything thoroughly, preventing me from really doing much landscape work and warm season prepping around my house in St. Albans, Vermont.

Wet trees in my yard shine in the sun as a sleet and rain shower
draws to a close last evening

Toward evening, the sun came out, and I was tempted to head outside and get some work done.

But it was still awfully wet, and that black cloud off to the northwest look ominous.

Sure enough, the cloud came overhead and unleashed a torrent of rain and sleet. It only lasted five minutes before the sun reappeared. As the remaining sleet slanted down through the sun in the gusty winds, the trees looked flash frozen, but it was just millions of water droplets glinting in the sun.

A highway near my house gleams in the evening sun after a shower,
contrasting with dark, wet trees and shrubs

I gave up on working outside with the new onslaught of water from the sky. But everything seemed newly washed and fresh and ready to turn spring green and grow toward another lush summer.

It was chilly, the fallen sleet crunched underfoot, but new green shoots struggled up through the muddy ground.

Finally, despite a cold wind, it felt like spring really had a plan to finally arrive.

I went inside and a weather forecaster on television confirmed a warm spell is due in a few days.

Daffodil plants just coming up in my yard gleam in a post
shower evening sun last evening. 

The dark grays of winter will slowly fade, as will the remaining, dirty patches of snow in the woods.  The green is coming. I can feel it.