Article April 16, 2001 Issue

Three scenes from my back lawn

Growing a greener life

By Enrique Smeke

A light rain began to fall, and so I sought shelter in the house. Looking out the window at my backyard, I remembered what a big job it had been to clean out the far corner several weeks before.

When the house was built some 30 years ago, that corner had been used as a rubbish heap, and ever since we'd moved in I'd been wondering what it would look like if I cleaned it up. Finally, I'd decided to do just that.

The pile had been full of opened cans and broken glass, fragments of grimy plastic, rusted metal bars, remnants of newspapers and magazines, rocks, and dead roots. It measured about five feet in length, width, and height, not counting what was below ground.

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