As I once wrote in Lawn of the Dead, I’ve probably had about three good lawn days in the time I’ve lived in my current humble abode. Well, today, I can boast, is Day Four. And it’s all because of shit.

Eh?

You see, early last winter, a plumbing condition in my house developed in which when the upstairs toilet was flushed, the downstairs toilet would burp a bubble. Nothing loud, but odd nonetheless. My rudimentary knowledge of plumbing told me that it was probably a blockage in the vent stack. The vent stack is the pipe that goes through the roof that allows air back in to the system to prevent such occurrences and to allow burp-less draining, much like the second hole in a can that allows glug-less drinking.

So I call my friendly local plumber, who comes over and examines the symptoms. He can find no blockage of the vent stack and tells me that there must be a blockage “downstream.” This means something is up with my septic system. “When was the last time the Honey Dipper came?” (The Honey Dipper, or Shit Sucker, is the septic tank draining service) he inquired. It’d only been about 2 years, and our system is normally good for 5-6 years, so it did seem odd that the tank would be full, but I suppose we better check it out.

A call to the septic guy and he was at my house the next morning. I showed him the treasure map to my septic tank’s access- I really do have a treasure map to make the search for the tank easier- and his assistant began digging. He wasn’t halfway to the tank, about 3 feet down when the foul aroma of the tank became evident. This is unusual, as normally the smell only shows itself once they pull the lid off. “Uh oh.” Septic Man says.  “Uh oh,” I repeat, “That can’t be good. What do you think it is?” I ask. He says, “Can’t tell yet, but the tank is definitely over-full if we can smell it from here.”

Rather than enjoy the poopfog, I decide to go back in the house and await Doctor Turdowitz’s prognosis.

15 minutes later, the good doctor knocks on the back door, and waves for me to come out and follow him. My yard smells like a hot day at the Calcutta Cheese Festival. We go over to the hole and peer down. It’s obvious the tank is full and is not draining. The problem is even further downstream. “How old is your leech field?” he asks. “It’s the original field, as far as I know. 1967.” I answer. A leech field is a series of buried perforated pipes where the water from the tank goes after all the, um, solids, have settled out in the septic tank. “Well, I think we need to dig you a new field, ’cause this one is about full up.” This, I know, is a Big Job. And expen$ive.

Ouch.

We haggle a bit on the cost, and he gives me a nice break, but it’s still about a $3000+ whack to my account.

The heavy equipment starts rolling down my driveway shortly thereafter and my back yard begins to look like the short route to China. The hole is about 25′x35′, about 6 feet deep, with a series of trenches where the new piping will be laid. Long story short, they put in the pipes, some tunnel-like devices above them, and pile the dirt back in. The job is finished by the next day.

The only problem (besides coughing up the $3Gs) is that it’s December and my yard looks like Woodstock’s mud pit, minus all the hippies. It’s not like we can throw down some grass seed and I’ll have a new lawn by New Years, not when it’s 30+ degrees outside.

So for the next 3 months, we deal with the mud. I pray for sub-freezing temps, so the surface stays hard, so we don’t have to bathe our two dogs every time they come back in the house. Invariably, the mud freezes, unfreezes, and refreezes, slowly becoming an undulating mass of mud and rocks that rise to the surface. The snow comes, melts and makes a chocolate colored mosh pit.

By early March, my indefatigable wife and daughter and I (well mostly them) spend the month raking and combing the yard, hauling out long-buried boulders, football-sized rocks, and thousands of smaller ones, making stone walls and piles at the periphery of the yard that divides us from the forest beyond. In mid April, the ground was finally ready for grass seed. I spread a bunch of the stuff down, along with fertilizer (although I figured the ground was pretty well full of nutrients, considering what had been dug up). The family and I took a week’s vacation and came home to the first tender sprouts.

After a few more weeks, after the first mowing of the thin growth, I decided to overseed, wait and hope.  It’s been the wettest May on record. While everyone I know, and all the talking heads on the local news have been complaining about the rain we’ve been getting almost every day, I remained silent and thankful.

By late June, it started to look like a new lawn, albeit with some leftover broadleaf weeds mixed in at the edges of the new stuff. The new area was mature enough for some Serious Chemicals, and I got the spreader, filled it with some TurfBuilder Plus and pushed it around the yard.

Now here I am, on the second Saturday in August, and I have just pulled the riding mower into the shed. I’ve got the laptop out here in the Adirondack chair in the shade under the giant maple. The smell of fresh cut grass mingles with basil from the veggie garden on the sunny side of the house. The Stargazer Lilies cast their overpowering perfume nearby, reminding me of those on the tables at Kate’s and my wedding, 20 years ago next month. While there’s still some weed-wacking and trimming to be done- maybe I’ll ask Zac to take care of that- the grass, for once, is actually greener on my side of the fence.

All because of shit.