Gunfight over dog poo?

[Ironwood]

You may want to put it back down again.

[Paelos]

You may want to put it back down again.

You're so chipper lately. Its the lack of games isn't it?

[Ironwood]

It's the lack of everything, I suspect.

[UnSub]

It's a move by the rich in the past to prove that they didn't need to use their land to grow crops like everyone else. They had so much land that they could just grow manicured grass on it to prove how much land they had. Aren't we rich, they would say as they strolled their commons.

Times may have changed slightly.

[Paelos]

It's a move by the rich in the past to prove that they didn't need to use their land to grow crops like everyone else. They had so much land that they could just grow manicured grass on it to prove how much land they had. Aren't we rich, they would say as they strolled their commons.

Times may have changed slightly.

Sure. It's the evolution of the lawn, though. It's just a vestigal part of classism that's become commonplace. Does it serve any purpose to keep a lawn? "Property values!" many would shout, but it goes further than that. The man with a good lawn is seen as a good member of society, while the man with a unkempt lawn is seen as a terrible neighbor and a bad dude. That slackass is driving down our values and letting his dog shit everywhere. I hear his daughter is a skank.

[Ingmar]

I'm with the monkey. Plus it's a bunch of space that could be better used for native flora, or growing something else that doesn't waste as much water, or has an actual use, etc.

EDIT: I bet a yard full of cacti won't attract nearly as much pooping action.

[Sand]

What if grass is your native flora, is it okay then? 

[Ironwood]

Cacti in Scotland.  There's a fucking thought.

[Paelos]

Nothing says get off my lawn like cacti.

[Sand]

Nothing says get off my lawn like cacti.

Thought you would appreciate this picture.

 

[Morat20]

Nothing says get off my lawn like cacti.

Landmines. Automatic sprinkler systems that dispense pepper spray. Flamethrowers....

Oh, you meant "legally". Probably. Cacti are kinda ugly, though.

[Fordel]

I'm with the monkey. Plus it's a bunch of space that could be better used for native flora, or growing something else that doesn't waste as much water, or has an actual use, etc.

EDIT: I bet a yard full of cacti won't attract nearly as much pooping action.

C'mon son, time to toss the ole pigskin in the cactus patch. 



Do you think Cacti and six months of snow mix? 

[Ingmar]

What if grass is your native flora, is it okay then? 

I said as much in my earlier post. 

C'mon son, time to toss the ole pigskin in the cactus patch. 

Who plays catch in the front yard? That's where the neighbor dog is pooping, and where people set up their little sterile identical unused wasted spaces. A back yard is a different animal entirely.

[Sheepherder]

Cacti in Scotland.  There's a fucking thought.

It's only one step removed from a thistle.

[Fordel]

We do here, since front yards don't have fences and we can toss them across a few yards that way.

Our Backyards are full of fruit trees, vegetable gardens and grape vines.



People pooper scooper their dog shit in my neighbourhood 

[Paelos]

Given that I live well above the 10th floor of a highrise, it's sort of silly that I even think about lawns. Bugs don't even fly up here. 

[Teleku]

1.)  I love non-grass lawns.  Here in Emeryville/Oakland, there are many cool old houses that have small front lawns that are entirely wildflowers, thick bushes, cactus (Looks pretty damn cool actually), or even just a solid bamboo forest.  I think they look very neat, and I'd probably do the exact same sort of thing in that situation.

2.)  The anti-lawn hatred here is pretty god damn retarded, and frankly, out of touch.  If some of you have always lived in a very large city, then you've never had to room for any sort of lawn, so you probably don't understand.  But in much the rest of the country, there is plenty of room in the front lawn.  The front lawn is where my friends and I played as children.  The front lawn is where people throw neighborhood parties and events.  A nice grass front lawn feels great, and being a kid living in house without one just meant that I'd be spending all my outside time at somebody else's house.  For many people, its not ornamental, its practical.  Its a social area.  It feels nice.  The backyard is where everybody plants all the god damn tomatoes and keeps the livestock.

3.)  The dog pooping thing is about common decency.  Dog shit should not be left anywhere.  If you leave it on another persons property, your just adding insult on top of the crime.  If your dog shits in the street, the gutter, the park, ANYWHERE NOT YOUR OWN PRIVATE PROPERTY, and you don't clean it up, then I'm fine with a hillbilly shooting you.  Please keep the commons clean asshole.

[Samwise]

Plus it's a bunch of space that could be better used for native flora, or growing something else that doesn't waste as much water, or has an actual use, etc.

 

Fuck lawns.

[Strazos]

Grew up in the suburbs - Fuck Lawns. And we didn't use it for playing as kids - we used the woods.

[Paelos]

2.)  The anti-lawn hatred here is pretty god damn retarded, and frankly, out of touch.  If some of you have always lived in a very large city, then you've never had to room for any sort of lawn, so you probably don't understand.  But in much the rest of the country, there is plenty of room in the front lawn.  The front lawn is where my friends and I played as children.  The front lawn is where people throw neighborhood parties and events.  A nice grass front lawn feels great, and being a kid living in house without one just meant that I'd be spending all my outside time at somebody else's house.  For many people, its not ornamental, its practical.  Its a social area.  It feels nice.  The backyard is where everybody plants all the god damn tomatoes and keeps the livestock.

If you live in the country, it's not a lawn anymore. It's a meadow or a field. The hate comes from people who have lived in a suburb or a subdivision and the Napoleonic tyranny you face from busy-bodies on the HOAs trying to make everyone fall in line.

[01101010]

Grew up in the suburbs - Fuck Lawns. And we didn't use it for playing as kids - we used the woods.

Grew up in a suburban neighborhood that lacked woods. We used everyone's backyard for 6-8 yards. Front lawns were for old people.

[Chimpy]

Added a poll.

For no reason other than the little "add poll" button was calling my name.

[Paelos]

Added a poll.

For no reason other than the little "add poll" button was calling my name.

FIRST!

Fuck em.

[Hawkbit]

We're in a subdivision, I won't ever do one again after we move in the next year.  Tired of the upkeep, trying to make it look decent, don't want to keep up with the Jonses.   Two houses down has been foreclosed three years ago and empty since, mowed once a year.  What's the point of me trying?

Once a year we get some renegade that attempts to not clean up after their dog, so I just scoop it up over to the sidewalk.  Folks get the point pretty fast.  Every year someone cleans it up at some point, too.  

Also, my first year in this house a woman let her dog crap in my yard and walked away.  I yelled over to her to clean it up and she walked away.  So I scooped it up and followed her home, put it in her yard.  I've never seen her even walk by my house since.  

It's just courtesy.  

[Merusk]

Grew up in the suburbs - Fuck Lawns. And we didn't use it for playing as kids - we used the woods.

Grew up in a suburban neighborhood that lacked woods. We used everyone's backyard for 6-8 yards. Front lawns were for old people.

Same here.  I'm very disappointed all my neighbors appear to be in love with fences.  We had a nice flowing area of about an acre and a quarter for kids to play in before the fuckers all fenced them off.   Now the kids just hop the fences and they grouse at each others kids for doing so.

[Sjofn]

2.)  The anti-lawn hatred here is pretty god damn retarded, and frankly, out of touch.  If some of you have always lived in a very large city, then you've never had to room for any sort of lawn, so you probably don't understand.  But in much the rest of the country, there is plenty of room in the front lawn.  The front lawn is where my friends and I played as children.  The front lawn is where people throw neighborhood parties and events.  A nice grass front lawn feels great, and being a kid living in house without one just meant that I'd be spending all my outside time at somebody else's house.  For many people, its not ornamental, its practical.  Its a social area.  It feels nice.  The backyard is where everybody plants all the god damn tomatoes and keeps the livestock.

I grew up somewhere that is not anywhere approaching a very large city. There was plenty of room on the front lawn, but we still never, ever played there. Backyards were where we did all the playing. The front was just ... the front. A waste, looking back. The backyard was huge, had great climbing trees AND grass to roll around in AND the tomatoes (which were up against the house and thus out of the way of most of our soccer playing and whatnot). The front just had boring ol' grass and the driveway and some non-climbing trees and bushes.

Lawns are fucking stupid.


EDIT:

Really, I should've just done this:

Front lawns were for old people.

[Teleku]

Man, you must have been some pretty narrow minded children.  We made use of the entire property, front yard and back yard when we played.  You need to learn to optimize your fun potential!  

Then again the front yard is what had the best climbing tree, so we tended to gravitate in that direction.

I still find the emotion over this funny.  As a kid at least, a lawn has use because you can use it to play on (if you want).  A lawn with a bunch of bushes and straw is just something to look at.  I don't see how you could really come to HATE it.  Though perhaps my neighborhood was more communal than others.  If it was just me, my sister, and maybe my cousin visiting, we'd use the large backyard/front yard to run around in.  If its playing with other friends in the neighborhood, then everybody played out in the street and into every bodies front yards as a whole.  That tended to be the best and most frequent playtime.

[Sjofn]

Kids will play anywhere you let 'em. I'm also never going to have one. Thus: lawns are a complete waste of time/effort/water. And given you live in Drought Land, you should hate lawns too!


EDIT: Like, I don't mind grassy public parks and stuff. I realise there are good reasons to have large grassy areas. I just think front lawns are silly.

[Paelos]

Parks: Good.

Fields: Good.

Meadows: Good.

Front lawns: 

[Lantyssa]

Man, you must have been some pretty narrow minded children.  We made use of the entire property, front yard and back yard when we played.  You need to learn to optimize your fun potential!  

We played everywhere, too.

Though I grew up on a court, so even the street was open season.  Front yards for the houses with a lot of space, back yards at others, the nearby woods were popular, ditches, neighbors' yards... it was all fair game.  But then the neighbors were almost all the same for the sixteen years I spent in that house.

[Strazos]

We did not play on the front lawn, for it was manicured and landscaped and shit. Eventually the same happened to our backyard, plus a deck was added.

We mostly played sports in the streets/culdesacs.

[Ingmar]

Man, you must have been some pretty narrow minded children.  We made use of the entire property, front yard and back yard when we played.  You need to learn to optimize your fun potential!  

Then again the front yard is what had the best climbing tree, so we tended to gravitate in that direction.

I still find the emotion over this funny.  As a kid at least, a lawn has use because you can use it to play on (if you want).  A lawn with a bunch of bushes and straw is just something to look at.  I don't see how you could really come to HATE it.  Though perhaps my neighborhood was more communal than others.  If it was just me, my sister, and maybe my cousin visiting, we'd use the large backyard/front yard to run around in.  If its playing with other friends in the neighborhood, then everybody played out in the street and into every bodies front yards as a whole.  That tended to be the best and most frequent playtime.

It's pretty easy to hate when you have to mow it despite it never being used for anything ever. Although really for me as an adult it is more of an environmental thing.

[Strazos]

What annoyed me, especially in NJ, is you would seen TONS of these little "landscaping" companies running around, burning up tons of fuel to run all their toys...just to mow someone's lawn. Not even big yards, either.

If I were to have a lawn of my own, I would use a push mower (yes you can still buy them, they actually seem kind of neat). As it so happens, next time I move my place will have a lawn. I'd rather let it rot, but since it won't be mine, I'll pay someone a few bucks a week to keep it presentable if not boring.

[Teleku]

I can understand the environmental point, and its fair.  I'm just not THAT much of an environmentalist I guess.  Once we manage to tackle issues like how to stop destroying forests in mass, radiating half a country, and poisoning millions of peoples water supply, then maybe I'll start to care about lawns a bit.   

Also, I come from drought land?     I grew up in the half of the state that provides water to the entire other half!

Here, this is a view from a random small town in California, in the middle of the town.  In the interest of internet anonymity, I didn't grow up here (I grew up in one of the many small towns in the valley in a 50 mile radius around it), but it still represents what most neighborhoods look like in every town/city that isn't up in the hills/mountains in Northern California:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=39.530948,-122.199758&spn=0.006157,0.016404&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=39.530942,-122.199897&panoid=0_jQkrUVJPByeLaT01br0w&cbp=12,282.21,,0,7.06

Or here, this is in the middle of nearby Chico, which is a city with a population of almost 100,000.  Still pretty similar (though more tree's, because Chico has a lot of god damn trees):
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=39.739939,-121.844988&spn=0.006138,0.016404&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=39.739854,-121.844929&panoid=FsBE0kb6ZXBlNqeR-BytBA&cbp=12,327.99,,0,11.11

Still plenty of space for play in the front, and combined with the street and the neighbors lawn, a great area for all the kids in the neighborhood to use as a whole.

So this is kind of what I'm basing my assessment and experience on, because this is similar to how everybody in the entire region lived (obviously people who lived way out in the country had wider options).  I kind of assume that the rest of the rural US should be pretty similar, since they are even more old timey than California (my hometown just celebrated the centennial of its founding.  Wohoo).

[apocrypha]

How the fuck did you guys turn this into a lawn thing? I couldn't care less about lawns, I just hate dog shit and dog owners who leave it lying around everywhere!

There's a tiny wood near us, and it's gorgeous, a little slice of wild in the middle of a city, and it's ruined by having retarded dog owners letting their dogs shit on the paths and tracks. And there's loads of little bags of dog shit hanging from branches and in bushes. I mean ffs you've already picked it up and bagged it why not carry it 100 meters to the fucking DOG SHIT BINS the council puts at all entrances to the woods?