I blame this column on 1) winter, 2) snow, 3) cabin fever and 4) the snow-sleet-rain that fell on the first day of spring.

Oh, and 5) humans destroying the world.

Get comfy because I am about to rant.

It all started last week on Spring – Day 1 when a friend handed me a letter from a company that shall remain unnamed offering to come look her lawn over to point out any pesky problems that she might want to get rid of.

Huh.

Let’s just overlook the overlooking of obvious – big gobs of snow obliterating said lawn – and instead we’ll begin with this: I am not a lawn nut. I see lawn more as a stand-in until I can build another garden bed.

Better yet, it is the path between all the garden plots.

I do like lawn, just not in mass quantities. And I really don’t like “perfect” lawns.

What could I possibly have against perfection?

Well, it usually comes in synthetic chemical pesticide form and is sprayed, poured and scattered all over perfect lawns. Just what I want to run barefoot through.

Of course, if anyone actually read the precautions on some of these products most Americans toss around their yards with great glee because they are about to best a dandelion, you would be told to wear protective goggles, gloves, clothing and sometimes masks when using.

Have you ever stood near or in the garden center in a store selling synthetic pesticides and tried to take a deep breath, only to feel an odd burning in your nose and mouth because of the chemicals? Reeks of the great outdoors, doesn’t it?

Many products warn that beneficial insects (think bees, people) will be harmed and that application should be undertaken only when those aren’t about. Golly, given the current honeybee crisis, there’s one warning you could stop worrying over.

Or the warning is that the products shouldn’t be used near streams, lakes or other water sources because the runoff will kill the fish.

Darling, grab the baby and let’s frolic in this paradise.

All to get a weed-free lawn.

As if that weren’t enough to set me off, then I read the list of “weeds” that drive Americans to these practices.

Al-Qaida ain’t got nothing on these weeds, insidiously undermining the foundations of what it is to be an American lawn:

? The dandelion with its evil yellow blossom.

? The wild strawberry with its depraved fruit that taste like candy, obviously a plot to lull us into a sugary stupor.

? Sorrel, which produces pestilential spring greens (uh-oh, I even planted some in a raised bed – on purpose).

? Clover, an amoral source of nectar for bees of all shapes and sizes.

? Purslane, another vice I grow in my garden to eat.

? Veronica, a two-timing plant that otherwise you pay good money for at nurseries.

And then there is my personal favorite, perhaps the most noxious weed of them all.

The wild violet.

I am sure my mother was shocked when, every Mother’s Day, I brought her a little bouquet from the front yard. What a dreadful child she raised, one who rejoiced when this foul plant poked its wicked self through the new blades of grass and blossomed in all its purple wrath, intent on destroying the innocent lawn surrounding it.

But there is hope. Maybe not for me, because I welcome all of these things in my lawn. I even – gasp – have moss growing in several “lawn” areas and I revel in it.

Stop in at SafeLawns.org for a visit and take part in the revolution. This Maine-based organization has a better way to get a beautiful lawn without killing us in the process. Some of it is as simple as leaving your grass clippings on the lawn after mowing, which can provide about half of a lawn’s fertilizer needs for a season.

So what if you have furrows on the lawn for a day or two. Maybe it means you – and the rest of us – live a day or two longer.

A different experiment

This, too, can be blamed on cabin fever.

I write my column monthly and often have wee updates I want to share but never get to (blame timing, cost of newsprint, change of seasons, etc.).

So I have started www.janinepineo.com, a blog in Web lingo. It is very much a work in progress, but at the moment there’s a slide show of my dog Daisy frolicking in the aftermath of the March 1 snowstorm. It should make you laugh, even though it is full of snow.

Also posted is a shockingly colorful photo from spring a few years back that shows, among other spring delights, dandelions in my front yard. If spring ever arrives here, we may faint from the sheer rush of color.

And I’ll be linking to my columns on the BDN site, so if you miss one, here’s another place where you can find a link back home.

I’ll be setting up a list of links to many of my favorite seed catalogs, along with other interesting gardening sites I discover. I may even start a poll on potential names for the site, since it seems rather pretentious to have my name in not-quite-neon lights across the top of it. (Actually, I had a title for it, but some blogging bloke harassed me about it, and since I didn’t want to engage in a bout of cyberspace fisticuffs, I used my own name, which means I may end up defending that soon to any Janine Pineo wannabes.)

In a few days, I will post a new slide show, this one of peonies from the June 23, 2007, peony garden tour in Bangor. Hard to believe we could be in peony paradise in a mere three months.

Plus, I have a lemon update probably best told in pictures that will be posted soon.

It’s all for fun, kind of like starting a new garden spot.

jpineo@bangordailynews.net

www.janinepineo.com