Grass is Always Greener

When you paint your lawn.

As i was listening to the rain pattering outside of our window -- we've had at least a little rain every day for weeks, and i wish we could send some elsewhere, for many reasons -- the story of Timothy Birdwell caught my eye.


It seems he owns Imperial Painting in Indianapolis, where there is a drought and therefore a watering ban, and he was tired of looking at his brown lawn.  So he decided to see if he could do something about it.


It turns out that those beautifully colored football and other playing fields we see aren't always just the natural color of the grass.  The same paint that they use to put white stripes on that grass can be used on the whole field, and can come in a wide array of colors.  You want to match the green of a particular shrub or tree in your yard?  They can do that.


The paint is a latex product, will protect the grass from scorching, and, once the rain begins again, will simply grow out as the grass grows and be gone after a couple of mowings.


Clever indeed, and you can even order the paint online, and buy a sprayer or rent one, and do it yourself.

Just be sure you don't get the color too far off from your lawn's natural shade, you wouldn't want your roots to show as it grows out.  Having to redo the roots of your lawn every few months could get tedious.


Today is

Back-to-Front Yad -- Fairy Calendar

Bloomer Day -- anniversary of the opening day of the first US women's rights convention in 1848*

Festival of Honos -- Ancient Roman Calendar (personification of morality and honor)

Get To Know Your Customers Day -- third Thursday of each quarter

Iroquois Green Corn Ceremony -- Iroquois Native Americans (thanksgiving for the maize harvest, with rites including a Thanksgiving Prayer, Confession Chant, and Feather Dance; through the 25th)

Kokura Gion Taiko -- Yasaka Shrine, Fukuoka City, Japan (shrine festival that incorporates a taiko drumming competition with up to 100 teams; through the 21st)

Liberation Day -- Nicaragua

Martyr's Day -- Myanmar

National Daiquiri Day

Ramadan -- Islam (begins at sunset)

Stick Out Your Tongue Day -- internet generated, do it just because it's fun

Stirling Settler Days -- Stirling, Alberta, Canada (through the 21st)

St. Justa's Day (Patron of potters; Seville, Spain)

Virginia Lake Festival -- Clarksville, VA, US (fun for the family, including tethered hot air balloon rides; through Saturday)


*Amelia Bloomer's birth anniversary on May 27 is also called "Bloomer Day"


Anniversaries Today

Isis marries Osiris (year unknown, ask the ancient Egyptians!)
Adonis marries Aphrodite (year unknown, ask the ancient Greeks!)


Birthdays Today

Stephen Anthony Lawrence, 1990
Jared Padalecki, 1982
Angela Griffin, 1976
Anthony Edwards, 1962
Brian May, 1947
Vikki Carr, 1941
Arthur Rankin, Jr., 1924
George McGovern, 1922
Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, 1904 (last direct descendent of Abraham Lincoln)
Max Fleischer, 1883
Charles Horace Mayo, 1865
Lizzie Borden, 1860
Edgar Degas, 1834
Samuel Colt, 1814


Today in History

A dragon more than 100 metres long was found dead on Yehwang Mountain in Henan province and was seen as a bad omen for Emperor Huan, who ignored it and died at age 35 (three years later); Xiang Kai, who had warned him of the omen, was released from the prison the emperor had placed him in, and lionised as a hero, BCE164
Moslem forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeated the Visigoths led by their king Roderic, 711
A hailstorm brings down the ceilings of the Papal Palace, Rome, 1500
Lady Jane Grey is replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after having that title for just nine days, 1553
Five women are hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, 1692
Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of the Ohio River to England, 1701
Australia's first recorded use of gaslight was commenced in a Sydney shop, 1826
The British Medical Association was founded as the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association by Sir Charles Hastings at a meeting in the Board Room of the Worcester Infirmary, 1832
The two day Women's Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York; "bloomers," named after developer Amelia Bloomer, are worn at this very early feminist convention, 1848
A meteorite with an estimated mass of 190 kg explodes over the town of Holbrook in Navajo County, Arizona causing approximately 16,000 pieces of debris to rain down on the town, 1912
Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 metres (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention, 1963
The Sandinista rebels overthrow the government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua, 1979
The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published, 1983
President Clinton announces his idea for a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in regards to gays in the US military, 1993
A Tel Aviv judges orders safe deposit boxes that contain manuscripts of Franz Kafka to be opened, 2010