Why have I chosen this particular moniker?? Well, not being as expert a gardening goddess as, say, Marn, whose gardens and landscaping is the envy of all of us amateurs, I do know one or two things about growing things.
My one golden nugget of information is the proper time to water one's growing things.
Never water in the heat of the day. The water just evaporates before it gets down to the roots of your plants, thereby wasting your water and not doing your plant much good.
Never water your plants at night. The excess water on the plant leaves and the general heightened humidity may cause fungus to grow on your plants, which is not one of the good things that you want to have happen.
Therefore, a good time to water is in the morning, before the heat of the day hits and after the dew has been burned off the grass. You maximize the water getting to your plant without risk of fungus.
And now, as I sit here typing in my journal, I can hear Psycho Woman's sprinkler merrily chuttering its way around its watering circle.
Did I mention it's 11:30 at night???
It's actually early for her to start her watering cycle. I'm not sure if she has watered the rest of her plants with the hose yet. Sometimes she sets up the sprinkler, runs inside for a bit, and then waters her plants. Usually it's closer to midnight when she begins her watering cycle.
Also, I wonder why she bothers watering her yard. She only seems to water the side part of her front yard, never the actual front yard. So part of her front yard is nice and green while the majority of it is dying brown hay. Much like my lawn -- I don't really feel like watering a lawn that I will be solely responsible for mowing.
Psycho Woman's front yard is also one large mass of western US dandelions, which are the ugliest and ickiest weeds I have ever seen. They are not the well-behaved short dandelions of the East Coast. And these suckers just take over wherever they find themselves. Psycho Woman had, at one point, a pretty lush lawn full of green grass, but since she has neglected it for most of the summer, it is now a field full of dandelions. Her boyfriend was out earlier today mowing down the foot-and-a-half tall weeds with a field and brush mower.
J keeps reminding me, sometimes not so gently, that for every dandelion I let go to seed, there's a thousand more dandelions waiting to take root. I keep telling her that I don't know why I bother since Psycho Woman's yard is so full of dandelions that there is no way my ten or twelve dandelions going to seed is really going to make much of a difference.
I have never met Psycho Woman, even though her house looks directly into my bedroom. I have seen her a few times, mostly just recently, but I usually see the parade of folks that go in and out of her house. I haven't even ever waved to her, and I know I wouldn't recognize her if I met her in the grocery store. I haven't even really seen her face. I almost forgot she had a teenaged daughter, who was out of the house all summmer, but I was forcibly reminded of her every night this week.
The daughter's bedroom is in the front of the house, and she normally keeps her window open. I keep my bedroom window open because I like the room cold while I sleep. This means I get to hear the daughter's music playing at midnight or later, and yesterday she had a friend over, so the obligatory shrieks and cuss words woke me up a few times. Luckily they decided to quiet down around 1am, which wasn't too late for me.
I think it's my particular cross to bear to be surrounded by wacky neighbors.