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Mon Apr 15 08:10 EDT 1996
Weekend Update, April 12-14

This was the weekend for the yard.  We wended our way down to the
Home Depot to get some stuff for our lawn this year, even though
we're planning to move.  There's something about spending dozens
of dollars to throw on top of dirt and grass that just doesn't
seem right.  But we've watched our lawn deteriorate the natural
way and decided that we should pitch in and fork over the seed
money to plant a fruitful lawn.

As our luck would have it, we arrived just at the time one of the
Home Depot experts was giving a talk on lawn care.  He told us about
Scott's 4-step program and how Steps 2 and 3 can be useless if it
is applied either at the wrong time of year or for the wrong reason.
Step 1 is fertilizer, but that comes after Step 0 and Step -1 which
is testing the soil's ph value and putting lime down to correct it.
That's what we did this weekend: limed our lawn.  Today, we'll be
putting down the fertilizer and come grass seed in the weaker areas
of the lawn.

(Let's see if I can remember steps 2 and 3.  Step 2 is turfbuilder
plus halts.  The Halts, I think, is a broad-leaf weed killer which
operates by coating the broad leaf with a herbicide.  The leaves absorb
the herbicide into the root system and kill it.  Well, if you apply
Step 1 when you're supposed to, it contains a chemical barrier to
prevent these broad leaved plants from coming above the surface
in the first place, and if you have only a few weeds, you're wasting
your time and money by spreading Step 2 down because it only works
on the broad leaved weeds.  Step 3 is an insecticide, mainly for
when you have a grub problem.  The problem with it is, in the Spring,
the grubs are fat and strong, and in the summer - when they
tell you to use the stuff - they're out munching on your roses,
having turned into Japanese beetles.  The best time to kill the grubs,
says Mr. Lawn & Garden, is in the fall after these beetles have laid
their eggs in the ground right under your turf.  And then, he recommended
Durzban.  Step 4 is the fall fertilizer, I think.)

Oh yes, wear your golf shoes around the yard.  Aerating the lawn is very
helpful.  (I told Joy that I haven't seen her in high heels in a long
time!)

We also began to fill the pool which will help us to get the water off the
cover, believe it or not.  The cool temperatures will help us from having
to pour chemicals into it.

We fixed a broken pipe to the outside (frozen by the winter cold), which
we dicovered when we went to fill the pool.

We also looked at some land for sale again on Saturday.  It is a nice
piece but we heard on Sunday that "someone else is showing some interest"
which may be a realtor's ploy.  Nevertheless, we are unprepared to make
an offer on the land becauase we have no idea of our buying power or
state of the selling of our home.  So we've been on somewhat of a
roller coaster these days.

That's plenty.  Have a good week folks!

Mark
       __________
     .'----------`.                        .-----------------------------.
     | .--------. |                        | Mark Metcalfe               |
     | |########| |            __________  | Cadence Design Systems, Inc.|
     | |########| |           /__________\ | 270 Billerica Roads MS04    |
.----| `--------' |----,------|    --=-- |-| Chelmsford, MA 01824        |
|    `----,-.-----'    \_0_,  |o ======  | | (508) 446-6451              |
|   ______|_|_______     M    |__________| | metcalfe@cadence.com        |
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