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Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details. How to turn a perfectly good lawn into Grub Street By J. G. Fabiano I absolutely adore waking up early in the morning because the spring air is always fresh and filled with the sounds of life. The birds fill the trees with their song and the bulbs of summer have sprouted long green shoots, promising imminent vistas of color and beauty. Even my lawn has bounced back from its glacial overcoat and turned from a freezer-burnt brown to a fresh new green. Except for a little round patch that seems to be a hold out from the big chill of the winter just passed. I'm sure I can fix this with just a little fertilizer, I thought to myself. Then, a funny thing happened when I went out to get in my truck to go and got the fertilizer. As I walked past the brown circle on my lawn I thought I heard the sound of chewing. Since it was early in the morning and I was the only one around I thought my imagination must have been getting the better of me. When I returned home I noticed that the little circle of brown had doubled in size. Now I was worried. I walked over to the growing brown spot on my lawn to see if I could figure out what the problem was. At first I thought it must be a favorite spot for the neighborhood dogs to do their business. But, why would it grow? Were the dogs bringing friends from other neighborhoods to have a round table discussion in order to figure out the problems of the canine world? As I contemplated this scenario I once again thought I heard the sound of chewing. Looking around I saw nothing that could have produced the sound. Then I kneeled down to feel the spot on my lawn and was astonished to realize that the chewing sound was coming from the ever-widening spot on my lawn. I grabbed a tuft of grass and the brown blades crumbled in my hand. This terrified me because what was left was an empty patch of dirt. I realized something nasty was attacking and killing my lawn. I remembered the years of backbreaking work I had put in to create a lawn from an empty lot and clearly understood that all of that was to be nibbled away in a few days by this newest assault on my property. I examined the dead grass in my hand. On close inspection I noticed something intertwined in what was once the roots of the grass. I brought the grass to within inches of my nose and saw that my lawn was under attack from some kind of caterpillar or worm. As I stared at it I swear it winked one of its beady black eyes at me. Moments later, standing in the driveway scraping what was left of it off my shoe, I wondered what this new threat was. I looked it up on the Internet and, lo' and behold, it was called a White Grub. Apparently these white grubs are the larvae of scarab beetles. I recoiled from the computer screen in horror as I came to the realization that my most formidable enemy was back. I kept on reading and found out that they were mostly white with a brown head and a C-shaped body and three pairs of short legs immediately behind the head. If you looked at them close enough you could even see the thing's gut through the thin skin of its abdomen. I also found out that if you looked really closely you one could identify the species exactly by examining the anal segments. That was a little closer than I wanted to get! As I went back out to the brown spot on my lawn it seemed to have grown again in the past hour. I pulled up another clump of dead grass, considered the worm-like grubs hanging on to the roots and muttered something like: "You sons of beetles!' My neighbor told me later that he had watched me from his window and wondered what I was doing talking to the grass, but then it had been a very long winter. After grinding the little buggers into the pavement I went back into the garage to get a claw rake so I could battle this newest alien invasion. I suspect most people would have simply purchased an insecticide to get rid of the problem but considering my past experiences with insecticides my wife had forbidden me to buy even an ant trap. I was not to be discouraged. Using the claw rake I began scraping up every dead blade of grass out of my lawn. I threw the stalks and roots into the driveway with the grubs hanging off them so I could back my truck over them later. I then noticed that the circle of devastation was growing faster than I could rake. I figured they heard me coming and were eating faster and faster to get through the entire lawn before I could get to them. About an hour later I heard my wife screaming at me. Whatever it was, I told her, I was too busy and continued to flail away at the lawn. Right then somebody grabbed hold of the rake handle and pulled it away from me. I spun around and saw a man standing there in a white jumpsuit and, just for a moment, I thought maybe my wife had finally called somebody to come and take me away. Then I saw that the name on his pocket said lawn and garden care instead of some psychiatric institution. I realized my wife had called in a professional because she was afraid I was going to do more damage to the lawn than he grubs. I looked around and saw that instead of a neatly raked, albeit brown and stubbly, lawn, our yard looked like it had been bit by a bunker-buster. Where the brown spot had been there was now a shallow hole about seven feet in diameter with a few grubs left squirming in the dirt. My wife told me later that the grubs were not squirming but rather laughing hysterically at me. The man from the lawn and garden company then asked me politely if I would mind going inside while he did his job and before I could argue my wife took me gently by the hand and led me away. The next morning, as I sat alone in the kitchen, enjoying my first coffee of the day and enjoying the sights and sounds of early spring outside my window, I thought I heard a steady dripping sound from the kitchen sink. Nothing that couldn't be fixed, I thought. After several minutes of searching I gave up and went back to my coffee. Just where has my wife hidden my toolbox this time? I wondered. The End
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