Grass

Krauthound seedlings Ella and Hugo enjoying the grass in Cord-sur-Ciel, France. August, 2024.

I was taught from a sprout’s age that the only two colors that matter are green and red, cabbage that is. Oh sure, red cabbages are exotic. But I could never take one home to my germinators. Imagine that? Give me a plain old green next door cabbage. One that can photosynthesize and displace nitrogen in the soil and consider my wild oats sewn. I had that head one time and traded it in for something different. I learned the hard way that the grass isn’t always greener, even with red cabbage. Sometimes, white-green is as green as it gets. 

—- Krauthammer

The country is in crisis, and the Krauthounds have heard your call – so we’re BACK mah bebeys!You can rest easy now, turn down the NPR and the JRE, dust off your kraut tongs, dip in deep and turn up that KH… yassss! So, let’s just put it out there…. Grass…. is a total Monet. You know, like that hottie at the wiener stand with them high heels up to the yayo, and the cherry blow pop lips with them spider leg lashes – a few blocks away she’s Giselle, a block away she’s Kathleen Turner, and up close and personal she’s Al Roker! But here’s the kicker, my advice: blur your peepers, cross ‘em too while you’re at it and give it good and hard to the Al Roker in the middle. Read on to see why…

The grass is always greener on the other side, especially if that other side is my front lawn. I get it all the time, “wow, nice grass!” “Killer blades, bro!” “Is that Augusta National or your lawn?!” – I hear it every day. And I always reply the same way… “Bullshit, man, shut your mouth!”. Then I go on to explain that from afar any decently cut patch of green weeds will look like a “nice lawn” but as I tell my wife, get on your knees, and really get in there. Get down low, Rick Moranis style and scope those blades, bro. Scope them! Scoooooopppeeee themmmmmmmm. It’s a fuckin mess. Yup, but don’t miss the lawn for the grass blades, as many men do.

Grass is life, life is grass, kraut is grass, life is kraut. Now put the pieces of your blown mind back together and hear me. A good lawn is not all perfect blades of grass. It’s a hodgepodge, some solid stock of Kentucky Bluegrass, plenty of dandelions, various thistle varieties and other run- of-the-mill weeds, top it off with some crab grass and this patchwork as long as it’s watered and trimmed amounts to splooge-worthy front yard. Inspect it at your own risk. I once was acquainted with a man who started on weeding his yard one Saturday morning and by mid- afternoon when he looked up, all he was left with was a dirt patch unfit for a simple game of kick the kraut can. He took his own life a few days later. RIP, Ed.

Our own lives, similarly inspected and weeded might yield the same barren wasteland. So, let’s just water them, own them, feed them, keep them green and trim, my bebeys. Some details of our lives’ lawns might pop up more than others in certain seasons, that’s OK. Plow on, for a new Snapper (the lawnmower brand, you degenerate) will soon level things out. And if we can manage to step back and see what others see we’ll notice that it’s the tableau, it’s the oeuvre, it’s the overall effect that is most often perceived -- not the burnt patch, not the weeds or the crab grass (but if you got crabs, def get that shit cleaned up, that’s gross). To leave you, before the roaring twenties, before fallen dukes and lords of Britania were forced to marry the Yankee daughters of sugar-water moguls, American front yards were not filled with grass. No no no, another green god graced this land. Yes, you guessed it, CABBAGE…!

To be continued…

The Puss-man, Out.