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Saturday, April 18, 2009

A nice day ruined by weed killers and pesticides

Photo by Gribley

The crap ought to be illegal!  

So you saw my last comment on starting the day off right.  It really was just perfect out today.  

After my class at the gym I stopped by our local farmer's market.  A little place but I love it there, plus it's all home grown stuff and/or locally grown.  Anyway, I bought petunias, Tomato, gerber daisies, and some other pretty flowers I can't recall the name but my plan was to spend part of the afternoon putting these beuties in my garden and the other part playing with the kids and eventually settle out back to relax after a hard day working and playing.

Doesn't that sound like a nice plan? I thought so too!  

That is until my neighbor decided to turn up his music......in his outside speakers.  At first I was a bit irritated but he was playing pleasant Gospel music and if I wasn't going to do something about it then I should just deal with it.  Then I saw him come around the house with a big black tank and spraying hose.  I knew what was about to happen.  He came over to warn me to keep the kids and pets off his lawn for the next three hours because he was going to spray a mixture of weed killers that were made to kill off every weed in his yard, plus, he added "your stuff is starting to creep into mine and I'm not crazy about that."

I have Bermuda grass which turns an even shade of brown in the winter while it's dormant but comes back with a vengance in the spring, summer and fall.  

That's not here nor there.  He has a kid too. There are other animals landing on his grass like birds, rabbits and cats.  Besides, it all gets washed into the ground and into our waters.  I just don't get it.  He started spraying this crap and my throat started to hurt, my other neighbors asked me about that aweful smell and just about anyone who was outside at 3:30 PM went back in the house to avoid the  poison.

I was still working in the garden and just before I went in the house he decided to share with me that he found these chemicals that kill anything that flies and he was planning to use it in the summer to kill off mosquitoes and flies.  I asked him if he was planning to have a party and he said no, "just doing it for my own benefit."  I said, "well hopefully whatever you decide to use wont kill the butterflies, the birds and the bees, after all they have wings too."  His answer.. "oh well!"

How ignorant and frustrating. 

It's been 4 hours since he sprayed and it still smells bad outside.  He ruined a great day!  Now I can't wait to move!

Ugh!  Sorry...the destruction of the natural world puts me in a bad mood!

Here's some information I found online about weed killers from fellow blogger Starre

" Every time you use a chemical in your yard or garden, it eventually washes away and joins the myriad other environmental toxins already present in our air, water, and soil. On top of the possible individual health impacts of each of those compounds, very few chemicals have been tested for how they interact with one another, meaning we’re running a big science experiment on the planet and ourselves. Avoiding chemical products is a sensible precaution."

...and to kill the weeds, here are some tips from Hanna

"here are The 7 Deadly Homemade Weed Killers, guaranteed to help you eradicate the weeds you find in your garden."

2 comments:

  1. OMGosh, how incredibly rude!!! I don't use weed killers. I walk on over to the blasted weed and dig it out. EAsy Peasy! I'm so sorry you have to deal with an individual like that. How incredibly frustrating and just so disheartening. IDK why more people don't care about what they/we've done to our precious planet. I'm in So Cal and we've been in drought for years and years. here I am conserving water, taking 10min showers w/a water saving shower head and what do I see today? My neighbor watering his concrete and another washing their car! These are two things that are not to be happening. I called and left an anonymous message at our water department to up the patrols around here because we all have to do our part to revive and replenish mother earth. ugh!

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  2. "These are two things that are not to be happening. I called and left an anonymous message at our water department to up the patrols around here because we all have to do our part to revive and replenish mother earth. ugh!"

    Yeah, you taking short showers is going to save the planet. Great job calling the water patrol on your neighbors. Water conservation is a feel-good effort anyway.

    It's like people who ride their bikes to work. You're not helping anybody. In 1970 a guy powered a car for 2 days off a flywheel that was revved up to 100K rpms. The oil industry promptly bought him out and have been holding the patents ever since, preventing anybody else from developing one. If more people learned basic physics and made and effort to revive that technology, we could make an impact in the environment. But people don't. They wear earth badges, ride their bikes, and call the city on their neighbors. Instead of ruining somebody else's day so you can feel better about yourself, how about actually learning how things work and then really doing something?

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