Slowly, I've been working on transforming our front yard from something that commands an enormous amount of resources and gives very little value in return, to something that hopefully re-aligns with the natural growing patterns of our local environment. Before I cut off our lawns water supply some two years ago, it was probably consuming water in the ball park of 10s of thousands of gallons in one summer! According to the this article,

"Most single-family homes use about 20% of the water coming through the water meter for household use. The remaining 80% is used on the lawns, trees, shrubbery borders, flower beds and vegetable gardens. It is said that about 50-75% of outdoor water usage is given to the lawn."

Put those numbers next to the "160,000 gallons of water per family per year" that the Santa Clara Valley Water District figures we use, and its pretty clear we are using WAY too much clean, drinkable water on our lawns each year.

There is no official tabs kept on lawns, so it is hard to tell how much water they consume, but "[b]y one estimate, residential lawns cover about 300,000 acres in California and suck up about 1.5 million acre-feet of water per year – equal to the amount used by 3 million typical homes." This is completely crazy when we are quickly realizing that drinkable water is becoming the worlds most precious and scarce resource.
Yet here in the US, we just can't seem to think beyond the lawn. It is like a worn out blanket form our childhood that we have been dragging around well into our adulthood. We can't see beyond the comfort that the looks of a lawn afford us. Take a look around on any given day in the suburbs and notice how few people are actually utilizing their lawn. In our neighborhood, the laws are small, roughly 1600 square feet. Seriously, what can you actually do on a lawn this size? When we need a place to run around, we always make a trip to one of three parks in walking distance.
The reality of the lawn is some kind of crazy conformity for property values sake. I know from taking to neighbors that people know how wasteful lawns are, but no one if willing to step out of line, probably in fear that their property value will go down, or even likelier that they will be shunned for lowering the value of their neighbors home. It is a cultural sickness in a lot of ways. We are caught in an unhealthy stalemate. Its all too true, so where does the cycle break? When do we start healing our land and our communities?

The big dig; manual labor!

A few weeks before our son was born early, I started to dig up our front lawn. Then I got side tracked and the neighborhood now had to live with a torn up lawn for a few months. In fact it is still in the process of being torn up. It is easier to do in the wet season, but still has taken roughly 20 man hours to do what has been done. The grass roots need to be removed as much as possible lest they grow back with a vengeance. I am also removing the PVC piping for the sprinkler system so that they will stop leeching heavy metals into our ground water. This is manual labor at it's best; working the earth with hand tools to make it a more sustainable place! During this phase I have had plenty of time to think about a suburbanites' relationship to the land. It is very rare that we have anything to do with it, other than maybe planting a few flowers or veggies. When it's time to do some heavy lifting, most people drive on over to home depot and pay some guys who sit out front a small wage to do it for them. I have been asked by several people why I don't just choose that option, as if my time is being wasted by doing it myself. Practically, it probably is a waste of my time. Our society just doesn't work this way right now. But in my hours of digging, I can't help but feel a deep sense of personal accomplishment and I get a great workout in the fresh air at the same time! Maybe we wouldn't be the fattest and most depressed nation in the world if we all got our hands dirty here and there.
I have more complicated feels about sustaining a lower class workforce simply by employing them to maintain our unsustainable landscape habits. I won't try to flesh those ideas out now, or I'll probably back myself into a tough spot. However I do believe that maybe there is a good model to develop in teaching the people who do all the hard work sustainable methods, or even to promote front yard gardens and convert the work force into the next big thing for local, sustainable organic agriculture?
In he coming weeks we are going to be planning and planting our no water landscape! I know it will draw a lot of attention since everyone in the neighborhood has had their eye on our front lawn for sometime now. I hope they like it, and maybe are inspired by it.
I'll leave you with a quote by poet/musician Michael Franti.
"Everybody wants to live like Kings and Queens, but no one wants to stay and plow the fields."