Walking Around

Yesterday evening, after work, I went for a walk around my neighborhood.

It appears that lot of us are trying to figure out how to avoid watering a lawn.

I saw a great many ex-lawns: bare dirt with piles of dead grass heaped in a corner, bare dirt with gaping holes where trees or bushes used to live, bare dirt baked hard with a light scattering of yellow weeds. I also saw lawns in the process of being demolished: a strip of bare dirt being gradually widened by a guy with a shovel, a pile of rocks and black plastic hanging out on a driveway next to a yellowed law. And I saw a few yards that had finished the lawn removal process and moved on to become low-water landscaping: short stubby palms and succulents in little islands of dirt surrounded by a sea of wood chips, white and red gravel arranged into a swirl pattern, sand-colored rocks surrounding a single palm tree, hard dirt covered by an orchard of small trees in individual pots.

It also appears that having a small terrier is a requirement for living on the street directly up from me. I thought I might identify which house has the little yappy dog that wakes me up 3 or 4 times some nights with its endless barking. Sadly, when there is an entire row of houses with identical looking dogs yapping at me as I walk down the street, it is very difficult to identify the one that is left out all night. I guess this means that the next time I'm woken up at 2:30 in the morning by a dog that will. not. shut. up., I'll have to walk around the corner to figure out where it's at. Or maybe stand on a ladder in my back yard with a big flashlight...