New things in Illinois

There are plenty of new things we are experiencing here in Illinois...but for some reason, I haven't felt compelled to post about any of them until this one.  The thing that we can not get over...that is foreign to us, even at our home in Richmond...is...grass!  Yes, even though we own a home on a 1/2 acre of land in Richmond, most of our "grass" really is moss....we mow every six weeks during the summer at most.

But here in Illinois, there's grass EVERYWHERE and it's THICK and it grows like crazy!  I don't know if this is a common "issue" with grass, or if we have just been blissfully ignorant as we tended to our moss every summer, but the past six weeks here have been ridiculous as far as grass is concerned.  We had to hire a lawn service because we are renting, and well, there's just no where for us to keep a lawn mower.  We park both cars in the two car garage attached to the house, and we were informed that it is just not a good idea to keep a lawn mower (read: gas) in a building that is attached to the main house.  Safety precautions aside, we feel like the last thing we want to do is sweat it out in the yard for an hour when we could just pay $30 every other week to pay someone to mow the lawn.  Based on the last few weeks, the yard really should be mowed every 8 days (as the local code enforcement officer let us know by leaving us a note on our door regarding the dandelions that had the nerve to pop up 8" tall three days after the lawn service had come), but with the recent purchase of a reel push mower (read: Amanda-powered, not gas or electric!), we've been able to cope so far this season.  The dandelions luckily have subsided for the time being, so mostly we are just contending with the super long grass.  Good thing we don't have any of those tiny dogs that would get lost in the wild back yard prairies!

Ana did try to hide in the tall grass...laying down in the back yard, she almost completely disappeared from view.

Her second attempt at blending in...she was desperately trying to keep those bunny ears down!

Giving up and just basking in the sun and cool grass.

 POP! Up go the bunny ears!! 

This is a slightly older pic, but it illustrates our inundation with dandelions quite nicely.  This was when they were pretty little yellow flowers...they quickly turned into 8-10" high sticks of weeds that refused to go quietly!