This is how nature is supposed to look.  Well, let me try that again:  Ignore the Snapseed and Instagram bells and whistles.  Ignore the posed look on Everett’s face.  He insisted.  Basically refused to move until I took the photo.  Ignore, too, the fact that the dog is over it.  Near impossible to get her to stand still on that small rock, with Everett stuck in time.  And she probably didn’t appreciate Everett’s left hand maybe grabbing a bit of skin to keep her in position. 

Ignore all that. 

Ahh, that’s better.  OK, so like I said, this is how nature is supposed to look.

I say “supposed” because I’m still trying to come to terms with what’s happening at this very moment in our backyard.  As Everett just pronounced when he stumbled into the living room this morning, “Are the guys still doing our turf?  Yeah, I heard voices.”

Yep.  We are getting a fake backyard.

I used to scoff at the notion of artificial turf.  The Montreal Expos’ field.  That’s my first recollection of the stuff.  My first interaction with the surface as best as I can recall.  That turf was so bad, they changed the team’s name, moved it stateside to Washington, D.C., and now they have a right fielder who, when in situ, looks very much like that Patterson Bigfoot film from Washington State. Or maybe it was Oregon.  Anyhow, the point is, ownership of that team was so repulsed by turf that they overcompensated in the other direction, over-paying to have a Skunk Ape look-alike roaming their now natural grass in the outfield. 

By the way, not that it matters, but I’m referring to Jayson Werth, the Nationals’ right fielder.  I don’t mean to demean him.  I’m just saying his look is the opposite of artificial turf.  I’m sure he’s a wonderful guy.  A real model citizen.  A fine human being.

Actually, I have no idea if he is wonderful, a model citizen or a fine human.  But I do know that he’s something like 6’5″ and 240 pounds.  So I don’t want to agitate the man.  And on the odd chance that he somehow finds this blog, I don’t want to find myself in his cross-hairs.  Um, hi, Jayson.  Apologies.  But even Jayson (hi, Jayson) would have to scratch his head over the eery similarities between the photo of him below, and Roger Patterson’s photo of the gent in the gorilla suit above.

See what I mean?

So like I said, the lengths to which some people will go to avoid artificial turf, erase it from their memory banks, pretend they never had anything to do with it — those lengths are apparently pretty extraordinary.

In another day or so, our little backyard lawn will be gone.  Vanished.  Replaced by synthetic plastic rolled out in rectangular pieces of green carpet.  Not exactly what nature is supposed to look like. Fortunately for me, however, the stuff purportedly works like a necklace of garlic when it comes to Jayson Werth.  Which is a relief.  We can’t have a ‘squatch roaming around out there.

Thanks for reading.