We found an apartment in Hillsboro that we liked very much. When we moved in, we were three. When we moved out, we were four. The apartment had nice amenities like a swimming pool, which Michelle and Kirsten used regularly. We had a washer and dryer in the apartment. It was located convenient to the grocery store, the library, and other things. But, like most people, we wanted a house.
We moved into our first house in the summer of 1992. That year, drought had hit the Willamette Valley. There were watering restrictions on the watering of lawns. The lawns went dormant during that summer. We were allowed to water trees, bushes and flowers. Related to the watering restrictions, there was one thing that I learned, which would become more important over time. In the brown fescue and ryegrass lawn, there were bright green plants. I wondered why the lawn went dormant but there were three plants in particular that stayed green, even in the heat and dryness of the summer. I know two of the plants, I don't know the third. The two that I know are dandelion and chickory. The third looks like a close relative of dandelion. All three had deep tap roots. They could reach one to two feet down in the soil to find moisture, whereas the grass was limited to about three or four inches of root depth. This became relevant as I considered pasture plants for non-irrigated pastured in the Willamette Valley.
Another thing I learned at our first house related to the cycling of nutrients through the grasses and soil of the lawn. Most people bag their lawn clippings, and along with it, their soil fertility, and send them off to the dump or yard debris recycling center. The process of bagging the lawn clippings and sending soil nutrients away created the necessity of bringing in soil nutrients from elsewhere. This is why people who send their lawn clippings away have to bring in fertilizer in order to maintain vigor in their lawns. I learned that using a mulching lawn mower cycles the soil nutrients right in place, greatly diminishing the need to fertilize your lawn. The soil nutrients move into the grass plants, then are chopped up and decompose, returing to the soil to be utilized again by the grass. That is quite an oversimplification, but you get the general idea. I read about natural lawn care and how a long cut lawn would be rewarded with deeper penetrating roots, which would allow for the use of less frequent watering and potentially less overall water applied. Additionally, long cut grasses, would shade out some of the plants that would normally be considered weeds. In effect, I learned several important unorthodox principles. Use a mulching mower instead of sending your lawn clippings away. The lawn clippings feed to soil life and biology, ultimately cycling back to the grass. Minimize your offsite fertilizer inputs. Cut your grass long to minimize weeds. Minimize, or don't use herbicides to protect your kids and pets, as well as that soil life that recycles your lawn clipplings. Herbicides kill the soil bacteria and fungi. These are things you don't learn from the Scott's or Ortho marketing materials. I had become a lawn heretic.
The lot that the house was on was small. The entire back yard was maybe 20' by 50'. Nearly a quarter of that was a patio and perhaps another quarter was covered with 1-2" river rock. The front yard was larger than the back yard. There was a nice red maple in the front yard. In the back yard, there were two Asian pear trees. I was delighted by the Asian pear trees.
I was introduced to Asian pears during my time in Korea. I had never seen or tasted one prior to going to Korea. I found the Asian pears to have a mixture of characteristics between an apple and a pear, as I knew them. They were sweet like a Bartlett pear, and crisp like an apple. Aside from the crispness, the texture seemed to be a cross of an apple and a pear. In Korea, people would usually peel the Asian pears, prior to eating. I found that it really depended on the variety. Some varieties had thick skins that were not that enjoyable to eat. Others had thinner skins that were fine to eat. You see similar variations in apples. The Asian pear trees were a wonderful novelty, but soon outgrew the small backyard. Reluctantly I took them down after a few years. It seemed like a sin. In retrospect, it probably was a sin. I didn't know enough about taking care of fruit trees to know what I could have done differently at the time.
The size of the backyard, dictated no real room for a garden. I could have put two or three raised beds in the front yard, but at the time, I thought that no one would put vegetables in the front yard. The conformist thinking of my previous experiences told me that was unacceptable. Walt Whitman said, "Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul." I suppose the idea of keeping vegetables out of the front yard, in order to be "proper," insults my soul, so I reject that idea now as a valid construct. Later I found that many of the "Victory Gardens" of the World War II era were kept right in the front yards of the suburbs. Now many Home Owner Associations prohibit the vile deed of planting vegetables in your front yard. I have heard said that Home Owners Associations are for people who just don't have enough government in their lives.
Our first house was a wonderful house. It got us through our Sequent years. We have many fond memories from that house, but it was limited in space, both inside and out.
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