There are a lot of things in my neighborhood not to like. However, I'm insanely glad I don't live in this neighborhood:

Rats and feces and stench. OH MY.

Like the tip of the spear, I go to the yard where the odor is emanating from. The yard is dark because of the thick layer of tress over head. The smell of feces is pungent in the air. As I walk forward I imagine this is what Bubonic Plague smells like.

Behind the home there are pens and dog houses and six Beagles.  There are feces in the cage and dog food scattered about.

But quite honestly, the pens and the backyard don’t look that dirty to me.

The smell is another story. It is encompassing, like mustard gas. It is pervasive and prevalent and pernicious. It seems to blister the epidermal layer of all who dare encroach on this invisible denizen’s lair.

I see a number of rats laying dead. There’s one in the weeds. There is a dead rat on its back near a shed; its white belly is exposed. I can see the rodent’s little rat fangs sticking through his little rat lips.

Oh, man. I cannot even imagine.  I can live with the poor soil and unprestigious address, I think.  As long as there aren't rats. 

Wondering which of the new "green" chemicals we're finding in garden centers are good and which are bad? Look no further, Garden Rant has a nice list.

School is out in just 8 more days. This means my time will be freed up a bit more so I can really do some in depth writing. Awesome. So I must ask you readers, what would you like to see me write about?

Do you have a website that you'd like to see featured? Would you like to do an email or in-person interview? (In person if you live within about 150 miles of Nashville, TN. Unless you want to pay my travel expenses. In that case, have laptop, will travel.) Do you have an issue you'd like to see brought to light? I'm all about it.

Simply leave a comment or email me at badbadivy {at} gmail.com and let me know what you'd like to see!

Okay, not really. Phototropism is actually where plants grow toward a light source. It was neat watching my seedlings do this every day. It's a reminder that our plants are living, breathing (although it's not like human breathing!), moving things. Check this neat time lapse video which shows phototropism in action:

HT: Stuart at Gardening Tips N Ideas

When I first started watching this video, my heart lurched a little, because the woman in this video looks and sounds a lot like my aunt who has been gone for 8 years. It's not her, though, naturally. Anyway, this is a pretty interesting video on propagating forsythia.

I and all my neighbors were done a great disservice by the people who built our houses. Our area is pretty rocky to begin with, but the builders stripped the topsoil and then put down a layer of gravel all over our soil. Then when they seeded our lawns, they just left it that way. It makes for a very "rocky" lawnmowing experience.

I miss the days of being able to walk through the yard and just pluck a few stray rocks from the grass. Now I pull tons of rocks up and end up having rocks shoot out my lawnmower anyway. And I've lived in my house for three years! Will it ever end? Anybody want to buy some rocks?

It's Tuesday, and that's a good day for taking polls! I'm polling all over the place at Shak today, check out the other Shaks to let your voice be heard!

Our community is in bad need of a cleanup. We live right near a lake, but it's kind of sad driving to the lake because people just throw their trash out the window all over the place, and it's a mess.

But wait! Hyperlocal blogging to the rescue! We've been discussing the problem at This Is LaVergne, and we're forming a community cleanup group as we speak. This blogging for good and not evil thing is beginning to be really cool! ;)

Thanks to a Twitter conversation this morning, I now know of a good place to get Tennessee native plants. It's called the Growild Nursery and they're conveniently having a Native Plant Festival this weekend!

I'm going to try to make it- I've been wanting to find out more about growing natives in my area!

Over at the Cool People Care Remarkablog, Michelle Andrade is talking about managing her lawn, the green way:

Where do we begin? Killing those unwanted green things (commonly called weeds) in our flower beds and garden space. I began with vinegar. I compared it to some traditional weed killer by using the vinegar where my food is going to go and the other as far away from my family and food that I can. I found that the vinegar worked just as well at killing the weeds; it just took a few more applications. As cheap as vinegar is, I feel like that works for me.

OK, so now we are ready to prep. For my garden this year, I decided to do a few organic herbs, strawberries, lettuce, tomatoes and arugula. To prep my area, I hand pulled any left over weeds and grass. I chose a soil conditioner with organic matter and worm castings to break up the dirt and get ready for my plants.   

Go read the whole thing- it's good stuff and I'm loving the advice!