Grass seed/screened soil mix

Thirty years ago this tiny little old Italian man who spoke broken English used to come into our store to buy a few bags of top soil and three pounds of grass seed. He came in every weekend for months. Got to the point where I finally asked him what his project was. 

He said "You taikka da soil n you taikka da seed n you mixxa up in da driveway n putta on da lawn n it comes up fast."

I thought about it for a very long time and then mixed up a batch to test. Indeed, that little old man, passed by now, was right. Three or four days and I saw green fuzz on the pile. I started doing this on an industrial scale, mixing up ten pounds of seed per yard, making three, five, ten, twenty yards at a time for customers and for myself. 

In the spring, it takes six weeks for grass seed to germinate. This method takes less than a week to turn to green fuzz. 

Our soil has a lot of organic material in it, and as the microbes eat it, heat is generated. It's that increased temperature and the constant moisture that tricks the seed into thinking that it's ideal germination time. Got bare spots in your yard? Try this seed soil mix. We have five different seed mixes for every application, and zee best screened topsoil you can get.

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Yet another batch mixed up on Monday for a customer in Stratford- I’m the only person I know who makes seed/soil like this.

Rembrandt-like sunset last night after suffering all day long outside on a penetratingly chilly Monday. If only the road wasn’t there, a beautiful sight in a drab kind of way.

I thought of attempting to paint that dreary sunset but was reminded of my last try, a semi-utter failure. This oil on canvas is my last try at painting, and after hours/days/months/years of trying, I gave up on it.

Ever tried to paint a shadow??? Impossible. The shadow on the road stopped me in my tracks, and this painting constantly reminds me of how cool artists are, capturing scenes accurately in a way nobody else can.

I angrily shoved the worthless painting into the warehouse and that’s where it stayed for decades, gathering dust and disrespect. This winter, I finally saw beauty in it and took it to “Frames by Kosal” in Monroe and asked him to clean it up and frame it. When I went to get it, Kosal told me that he likes it, that it looked like a place that he wanted to go. Guess it’s not so bad after all. Now it hangs in my living room and in the morning when the sun sneaks through the house it briefly illuminated my try at art. Not so bad after all, too bad it took me decades to come to that conclusion.

I guess I’ll just have to settle for having a picture of that dreary sunset- I’m not even going to think about painting again ‘till I reside in an old folks home.