It started out jokingly

Much of what I share on social media is meant to be at least partially joking, but sometimes things later turn out differently. Like this week.

I decided that this past Wednesday was the perfect time to mow my lawns and do all the edges, too. It had been delayed (yet again) by rain, but the cool/cold temperatures had slowed the growth, so it wasn’t extraordinarily long. That doesn’t mean it was easy to do.

The edges are always a challenge because the line trimmer is awkward to use. It’s not particularly heavy, but the weight is carried by my forearms, which also control the movement. As a result, my arms get tired fairly quickly, and that’s true regardless of how dense the growth along the edges is, or whatever the weather’s been doing.

Mowing, on the other hand, is much harder when there’s been rain, especially when the grass is long, because moisture stays close to the ground for a long time. That makes the lawn much denser than it is when dry, and that can stall the mower if I’m not careful. This week, I often had to use force to push the mower through particularly dense patches—being careful not to stall the mower—and that, too, required a lot of strength centred on my forearms.

When I was done, I was physically tired in general, and my forearms in particular. I posted the joking status at the top of this post on my personal Facebook, and that was that. Until it wasn’t.

While I was mowing out front, I checked my letterbox and found a letter from Hamilton City Council. I put it in my back pocket, intending to put it inside once I was down out front. It stayed in my back pocket until I was completely finished. By then, it was a bit moist.

As I was sitting in my chair to relax and recover, I opened the letter: Another letter instructing me to look after the raingarden in my front lawn. I was not amused, but I also didn’t really care because I’ll get to it when I get to it.

The new letter was a little bit clearer than the one I received back in 2022, but still didn’t tell what what, specifically was wrong, still just like the 2022 letter, it said there were “issues” and they were “incorrect plant selection” and “not enough plants”. There were a few changes this year, though.

First, while last year’s frankly oddly amateur-looking letter (it looked like something printed from a webpage) was signed by a “stormwater compliance specialist”, this year’s was signed by the “Compliance Manager” for the “Three Waters Team”. This made me chuckle because the Hamilton City Council, like several others, opposed the previous Labour Government’s Three Waters reforms, which were meant to ensure that water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure and treatment were all adequately funded and met national standards. It became a campaign issue in last year's election and the current “Coalition of Chaos” three-headed coalition government repealed the law and basically told councils they’re on their own to fund it all (in my opinion; the Chaos leaders would no doubt dispute my honestly and sincerely held view).

This year’s letter also dropped the veiled threat that pissed me off in 2022 (“As this is a pilot programme, we will not be taking any action”). Instead, this year's letter merely said, “We ask that you keep this stormwater device regularly maintained so that it can continue to function well.” I think that them dropping veiled threats is why this year’s letter didn’t annoy me like the last one did.

Another difference this year is that the brochure was professionally printed on slick paper stock—a proper brochure—while what I got last year was just printed out on an office printer, which made the photos of the approved plants very difficult to see. I haven’t bothered to check if the text is the same, though, and only skimmed this year’s version without really paying attention. I still think I managed to work out what the plants are.

The larger issue is that what I always refer to as “The Damn Raingarden” annoys me just as much now as it did in 2022, and for all the reasons I said at the time (see the post linked above). This time, I thought I’d be clearer about the physical reasons I hate it so much, apart from the fact it’s, as I said in 2022, “ugly AF—it looks like a cattle trough (and it’s in a bizarre spot).”

The bottom of The Damn Raingarden is roughly 40 centimetres (just under 10 inches) from the top edge of the round concrete trough-like thing that contains the raingarden itself. My property slopes from the house down to the footpath, and that means that the bottom of the raingarden is farther away from ground level on the house side than on the street side.

Specifically, the edge nearest the house is nearly at ground level, so I need to sit on the ground and reach down 40 centimetres so pull weeds. That may not sound like much, but because the land is sloping away from the house, I also have to keep myself steady so I don’t topple into the raingarden. On the street side, the top of the rim is 25cm (15.75 inches) above the ground, so I’m sitting lower and don’t have to reach in as far, and the land has started to level off at the point so it’s easier to stay put.

All the other issues remain the same: I need to special order the plants (though winter isn’t the ideal time to do so), and I cannot find their required “hardwood mulch” anywhere in New Zealand. I’d planned on ordering the plants earlier and simply forgot. To deal with that, I’ll set a reminder on my phone to remind me when it’s time to plant. However, I decided some time ago that I’ll use ordinary bark mulch (which I’m almost certain the builder did, too). If Council insists on me using hardwood mulch, they can give it to me and I’ll use it. Otherwise, and since it’s at my expense, it’ll be ordinary bark mulch. Still, I’m not a total contrarian: I’ll “remove excess mulch” before adding new.

There’s actually another reason I’m so nonchalant about “compliance”: I’ve seen how few raingardens in front of other houses in this development are “compliant”, and some of them are far worse than mine. I will get to the one in front of my house, but it'll be on my schedule and at my convenience.

As if receiving a new letter of annoyance wasn’t enough, I apparently overdid it on Wednesday. I needed all day Thursday to recover, and, in fact, I’m not feeling 100% today, either. Oh well, at least the lawns and edges are done. With more rain on the way (again), it’s good to get that out of the way. I ought to be less annoyed with rainy days, too.