I will restore my lawn one million-dollar sprig at a time
Image courtesy of Healthline Gate. CC license.
I estimate that by the time my yard is covered with real grass, the ozone layer will have disappeared and life on Earth will cease to exist.
As it stands, my yard is covered with a lush, green carpet of weeds, some of them requiring power tools to keep at bay if you dare walk among them. The weeds bear a passing resemblance to grass when mowed to within a quarter inch of the ground, but they grow at the slightest provocation, say, if the world hasn’t tilted on its axis in at least a week.
What the weeds lack in attractiveness they make up for in variety. I have your basic stickers that could disable construction vehicles; I have bushy, green things with purple berries that would wipe out the population of mainland China if eaten; I have tall, hairy things which I’ve been trying to pass off as fruit tree saplings; I even have dollar grass, which is called dollar grass because you have to spend several million dollars in herbicides to get rid of it.
The weeds are home to a menagerie of various crawling and slithering life forms you hear about in those little newspaper stories about some Third World inhabitant who had all of his blood sucked out by a new species of butterfly.
The other day I was clearing some thatch with a front-end loader when I noticed whole herds of black beetles scrambling madly to hide. I assume they were black beetles. I didn’t get too close on the chance they were roaches. They’re still out there, but I expect they’ll be taken care of by the flesh-eating scorpions.
Occasionally I see hints of movement in the taller weeds, and from watching television I know this means a member of the reptile kingdom is out there and if I were smart, I would let Jim handle it while Marlin Perkins watches from the helicopter and talks about term life insurance. “You know,” Marlin says, “seeing Jim being devoured by that python is a handy reminder that you should take out a Mutual of Omaha life insurance policy, because you never know when you’re going to run up against a snake in the grass. THAT’S IT, JIM! KICK HIM IN THE GROIN!”
My plan to conquer the yard with real grass is to sprig it. Sprigging is to yards what the Chinese water torture is to human beings. The successful sprigger must follow a careful series of steps if he is to sprig a yard correctly:
1. Obtain the sprigs, usually by stealing them from your neighbor’s yard after they’ve gone to bed.
2. If felony isn’t an option, search your own yard for sprigs. Sprigs only grow in the wild next to houses or in sidewalk cracks.
3. Rid a small area of weeds. Use dynamite if necessary.
4. Plant sprigs. You way want to protect the young sprigs from Mother Nature’s voracious sprig predators by building a reinforced concrete bunker around the sprigged area.
5. Hope the ozone layer holds up until you can have sod trucked in.
This column was originally published in the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .