Nine years ago, house shopping, I stumbled onto what would become Pathos Prairie. The acre of lawn wasn’t the draw. The photos that sold it showed a charming midcentury rancher painted in green, yellow, and blue, with a little library and the kind of old house touches that you just don’t find in the greige-saturated, open floor plan models of today. The tour of the 1200 square foot house didn’t take long. The walk through the botanical wonderland installed by the sellers, William and Walter, master gardeners both, that took much longer. I was in love.

My realtor turned to me and asked in her Scottish brogue, “This is a muckle great yard, nae the wee garden you’d put on your wishlist, lovie.” She checked once more before I signed the offer, asking if I was absolutely certain, telling me this wouldn’t just be a new house, it would be a new way of life, and I said I was.

But back then I was a numpty and figured I’d just hire a guy. That was four lawn guys ago. The first one talked me into herbicide, and I let him, until I saw my trees and flowers wilting and spotting, and knew I’d made a fatal error in judgment. Then came two in a row who showed up a few times and vanished. Who knows what happened to them; they blasted through same as the first, paying no heed to angles or to whatever mystery bloom was making itself known amidst the turf.

My last one was Rob. Rob, bless his heart, was nice enough, but he kept mowing over the natives I’d just bought from Buchanans, even when I begged, barricaded them with scrap wood and rocks, pointed them out, and asked him to come only when I was there to help him remember. After Rob unrepentantly showed up the one day I wasn’t there and took out some freshly planted rudbeckia and Indiangrass, I finally did the math: between the lawn guys and the mowed-over plants I’d bought at a premium, I’d paid for a machine three times over. I found a good deal on an Ego electric and told Rob I didn’t need his services anymore.

Mowing lawns is a lot like painting with a really big brush. You use it to block out big sections, then you need a little brush to get into the details; it wasn’t long after I got the mower that I put an edger on “pay-in-four” to do that. Before they moved out, William and Walter taught me:

And also:

The latter of the lessons helped me get over the shame of something dying, and the former taught me to pay attention to what’s thriving. So sometimes my lawn looks like I forgot a spot, or several, but being behind the wheel means I get to steer around the horseherb, possum haw, sunflowers, and blue sedge- all plants that are presently available for purchase at a native nursery near you, but are popping out of the ground for free thanks to birds and squirrels. Mowing just my front lawn takes me upwards of three hours because I have to stop and confer with iNaturalist over whether something should stay or go. Magical thinking, maybe, but I also believe my slowness, combined with yelling my own rendition of Ludacris over the engine, saves hundreds if not thousands of tiny lives. If you’d like to try it, the lyrics are “MOVE, BUGS, GET OUT THE WAY, GET OUT THE WAY BUGS GET OUT THE WAY.” I don’t sing the rest of the song because frankly I find it misogynistic and too violent for someone trying to save grasshoppers from getting chopped to bits.

Of course my life would be easier if I just let someone make clean zigzags through a green square of lawn. I’d probably have more time to write letters and read books. Hiding fire ant bites and welts on my arms from clearing cow itch would not be the deciding factor on what I wear to a party. And yet, when I wake up in the morning and hear the flycatchers, woodpeckers, jays and cardinals; when I watch the veritable aerial circus of butterflies and native bees loping between the goldenrod and sunflowers, I feel a joy that a tidy yard could never give me.

I named my little sanctuary after a Parquet Courts song. I don’t know why they named a song “Pathos Prairie,” but it carried the spirit of what my little prairie is about: composting the disappointment and sadness I carry in my heart into something alive. The effort and presence it demands pull my focus off myself and onto something that will outlast me.

It’s fun to live in a swampy city that’s prone to drought and occasional wildfires. No natural disaster left behind! April is supposed to have showers so says the song but we just haven’t been all that surprised that things aren’t exactly tickin’ to the usual rhythm of the southeastern saints, and so it was such a delight when we actually got them. Several days of delicious spring rain, exploding out the golden coreopsis and firewheel flowers, getting the lyreleaf sage to thrust up spikes of purple bluebells. I was on my knees, thanking the Lady of the Bayou for the gift, taking advantage of the dampened earth, putting in some pentsemmon and gaura crimson butterflies when I realized I’d lost my spade in plain sight. I was looking around in the dirt to see if I’d accidentally buried it when a Gulf Coast toad hopped out and just watched me for a good while

I backed away, apologized, took his photo and sent it to my friend Delphine, asking her if my spade had magically turned into a toad. She didn’t answer and I turned to ripping up the St. Augustine. When I came back to the place the toad was, I didn’t see him but I found my spade. I wrote Delphine back and said “Never mind! Got my answer.” Thought briefly that now that I knew this was a magic, shapeshifting spade I should probably retire it. I held that thought about four seconds before I put it back to work because girl, this is the last spade I got. The others hopped away a long time ago.

Gulf Coast toads are listed as common, not like Houston toads which are critically endangered with less than 300 in the wild, and needless to say far from the construction zone of Harris County. But friends, let me tell you: been a hot minute since I’ve seen any ‘t all, and that’s not for a lack of trying. There are no less than eight toad abodes on the grounds of Pathos Prairie, one of which has painted on the side “Toad! PLEASE! Abode!” Because I was getting frustrated and thought I should communicate that. Toads eat slugs and moths and lots of other things that aren’t great for flowers, but more than that, not seeing toads is a sign that the earth is becoming an unsustainable place for all of us. Seeing even just the one warms my heart, and hearing them sing their sweet croaky songs in the moonlight makes it soar.

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