Sometimes, when you’re feeling a little down about the blighted condition of our dear old town and the potholes have nicked you for another $700 repair bill, it might at least introduce a note of cheer to remember that we are a pollinator-friendly city and have been since January of 2016. We are just a fine damn place for bees, or hope to be.
To that end, the St. Paul City Council voted 6-0 the other day to give its blessing to No Mow May. City inspectors will be told to stand down when they get a report of weeds or overgrown shrubs or other clutter, hopefully excluding stoves and automobile bumpers. All of that uncared-for growth will promote pollination.
No Mow May follows No More Plowing in January, February, March and April, tremendously successful campaigns that resulted in our potholes making national news in the Wall Street Journal last week. We’ve got some real beauties out there, axle-breakers and tie-rod-benders, and it’s high time we received some national recognition.
Why, if I ran some highfalutin newspaper like the New York Times or the Journal, I would dispatch a correspondent out here to report on how we stand in the middle of the street at this time of year gripping an ice chopper and occasionally stabbing at some frozen affront, real or imagined, before staring again glassy-eyed at the sky while mumbling pre-historic grunts and moans of despair.
Out walking recently, just for sanity, I came across a woman all bundled up and kneeling at the side of the street, poking at the cemented snow with her chopper.
“What did you lose?” I asked.
“I’m trying to find the drain,” she said. She said she was a member of a volunteer group, something like Friends of the Drain or some such whose members are committed to finding the drains and clearing them of ice.
I got down on my hands and knees and joined her.
“Let’s be real quiet,” I said.
She was quickly circumspect.
“To listen for running water,” I said.
We could not hear anything, although we heard water running elsewhere.
I went on my way, occasionally passing other souls aimlessly chopping and muttering, their heads bowed and shoulders slumped, as though winter had at last broken them.
But, good news, we have No Mow May to look forward to! Research from Appleton, Wis., of all places, showed that homes that participated in their No Mow May in 2020 had more diverse and abundant flora and an increase in bees. Bees, the answer to all our problems.
Earlier: Let the grass grow, let the dandelions bloom and let the leaf piles sit to help nature as it wakes up during No Mow May.
Wait a minute. But what if we like to mow the lawn and in fact can’t wait to get at it? There is no better smell in the spring than freshly cut grass. And keep in mind that this blessing, this supposed environmental benefit, is brought to us by the city council. Probably not two of them even own a lawnmower, much less an ice chopper. They have people for that. These detached from reality do-gooders think they are doing us a favor.
No Mow May after what we’ve been through this winter? We think not. And if the inspectors are feeling guilty because of their lightened work load, they can always clear drains.
Bees will be the least of our problems if this ice hangs around until No Mow time.
Joe Soucheray can be reached at [email protected]. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic” podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.
