The Neighbors from a Satellite View

[digitS']

What Have You Learned About Them?

If I'd titled this: "measure the lawn sprinkler water" - would anyone have even bothered to open this thread??

This neighborhood is in transition. I think any neighborhood is - time doesn't stand still. It was in transition when I got here. The old lady & old man on each side of this home had died and the old lady that had lived here, had moved on to a nursing home. Middle-age property owners had replaced them, altho' 1 had turned Mom's home into a rental and one has sold his home to his daughter. Anyway, younger people have now moved in across the road after a divorce in 1 house and another daughter moving away "to start a new life." Which I understand from her father is much like her old life - too many mistakes with regards to men.

See what you can learn from me?? All the neighborhood gossip ! I know: You don't care.

Well, let's get back to looking over the fence - with an aerial view! I learned that the house not directly across the road but a few doors down . . . you know, the one with the half-dead front lawn during the summer. It has a fully-dead back lawn during the summer! Yeah, it looks like there might be brush taking hold out in the dirt but that's about it :/.

Now the young couple across the road (who moved in after that messy divorce), they are trying to do their best with their lawn. I mean, they are real young. The guy is going to have to learn to stop parking his motorcycle on the lawn but . . . he only does that once in awhile. The girl needs to get some relaxation time. She works 6 days a week, best I can tell. Poor thing. Could be the guy's got a job like that, too. No kids, 2 cute dogs that seem well cared for but who should probably get more frisbee time and such.

Anyway, they find time to run the sprinkler - all night! Just a cheap sprinkler - you know, 1 of those with no moving parts that sprays upwards from the ground and covers about 100ft to 200ft. Yep, you got it -- all-night, full-on covering 200ft, at best.

I've got a couple of those sprinklers. It takes 3/4 hour to put down 3/4" of water. I'm not going to do the math on what 8 hours would put on that ground! Oh yeah! 8 inches of water!

I'm not going over to admonish them for wasting water - might be enuf for 2 months in 1 night!! They will see their water bill soon enuf. Hopefully, they won't react like the family a couple more doors down who have opted for a desert. I mean, "measure the lawn sprinkler water." What does the grass need? One inch a week? Rain storms can help and the Weather Service will report what they amount to. Otherwise:

set out a straight-sided can or cake pan,
look at watch,
turn water on,
look at watch,
turn water off -
measure.

Steve
now, if I could just count on the guy next door sitting close to the fence when he reads the paper on sunday mornings.

 

[Detlor Poultry]

I didn't read any part of this thread, but interseting shot of Mr. Ed, steve.


And kno, I wouldknd't have opind it if I had knowd it was about Spriknklers.

 

[thistlebloom]

Your neighborhood story reminds me of my neighborhood. ( Hey, does Mr. Ed live in your NEIGHborhood Steve? Just wonderin. )

The folks across the road are not real energetic when it comes to yard work. In fact I think they may be testing the hardiness of the shrubs that the contractor installed when the house was built.

We all keep pretty much to ourselves, which is fine, but one day the woman half of the neighbors across the road had occasion to come to my door. We chatted about whatever it was she had come for, then she sighed and said, "I wish my lawn looked like yours. What do you do to it?"

Uhhh, water it? What? you mean a nice yard takes some kind of labor?

Seriously, they had a riding lawn mower for a 20 x 20 patch of weedy "lawn". It of course never needed mowing, since it was in a death wrestle with death. But the male half would annually fire it up and venture into the more untamed parts of the property, just in case that head high knapweed needed cutting.

We have lots of big rocks around here. Lots and lots. I think that may be why he only did his yard work once a year, because it took a year for the mower repair shop to collect all the needed parts.

Then one day he unloaded a brand new shiny riding mower. He proudly fired it up, headed out into the weed jungle, hit a rock with a deafening whack! and that was the last time I heard a mower over there. They have since abandoned the house, but you can't tell by the yard. It looks the same as ever.

Oh, and good thread topic Steve! Yes, absolutely measure your sprinklers out put!

Sorry I got a little distracted from the actual subject...

 

[lesa]

You guys are too funny! I am so happy I don't have any neighbors... Here in my neck of the woods, the last thing my grass needs is more water! I swear it grows so fast, I can hear it! I was visiting friends on Long Island- the land of weed spray and sprinklers. I swear they have the sprinklers on timers- and they go off, even if it is raining!!

 

[silkiechicken]

Lawns are over rated. Never had one growing up, don't maintain one back home, and don't plan on keeping one in the future. I mean, you can't eat a lawn.

 

[Detlor Poultry]

...Hey, does Mr. Ed live in your NEIGHborhood

(drum flitter with cymbals)

 

[digitS']

. . . they have the sprinklers on timers- and they go off, even if it is raining!!

Yes indeed - automatic sprinklers are on timers. It does get kind of silly for them to run during or after a rain but there's seldom a 1/4" of rain that falls here during the summer. One or two times each summer and that's about it. I've been moaning about the weather lately but even tho' there's been rain, it hasn't amount to much. Mostly, the coolness and wind, wind windwind has been the problem. Yeah, it has been raining off & on for 3 days but still hasn't quite totaled 1/4" the WS tells us.

Silkie complains about a lawn but it isn't watering she has to have much concern with over there by the Puget Sound. Probably, it gets so you don't care much about a lawn if every time you walk across it, your shoes get soaked . Most of the plants over there grow to be beaucoup foot, tall trees, anyway!

No one said, "a deep watering is a good thing." Yes, that may be. However, lawn grasses are dwarf plants. The roots are short and it doesn't take much water to reach whatever depth they achieve. The trees appreciate more water but if you are just sprinkling lawn grass - 8" or 10" inches of water is just recharging the aquifer.

Steve
who may be going out to open a greenhouse vent again since it has reached 70 in there, at 11am. gusts above 30mph again. . .

 

[joz]

I figure someone should get an aerial photo for their click, eh? These are my neighbors.

I only know a few of them. There are just. so. many.

 

[digitS']

Whoa, Joz!

Those lots are FULL! Are these NOLA, shotgun-style homes?

I learned from my satellite view of my place, that I don't park very straight in the driveway :/. It was also kind of fun finding the pickup both at the little and the big veggie garden in Streetview . How can that pickup be 2 places at once - probably while I was taking a nap here at home?

I've long suspected the pickup has been leading a double life - the gas gauge has been evidence of that!

Steve

 

[joz]

Some, including mine, are shotgun doubles. Single shotguns are narrower... usually only about 15' wide. Our unit is 12' wide x 86' long; the whole house is 25'x100'. I rent out the other side. Some of those houses are single-family homes tho, and have hallways (ie, not exactly shotguns).

Since my "raised" beds don't show in the garden, and there's a Camry in our driveway, I'm guessing this pic was taken in late January.