Posted on 11/01/2007 9:26:16 AM PDT by WakeUpAndVote
SYDNEY (Reuters) - A man has been charged with murder in Australia after an elderly man who was watering his garden was bashed to death in an apparent case of suburban water-rage.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Authorities said Proctor was not in breach of water restrictions, as he was using a hand-held hose and was watering his lawn on his allocated day.
..snip..
Now he’s six feet Down Under.
Since I live in a tropical paradise (yes, I’m bragging), I have never understood this obsession with lawn watering.
Dry season in Panama (January through March) everything turns brown. It is part of the natural landscape. With the first rain in rainy season, the grass and foliage start to turn green in 4 days.
The folks who didn’t understand this were the U.S. military who watered their lawns during dry season. It looked rather strange when everything around them was brown. It was an obsession.
Was the world going to stop rotating because lawns weren’t watered?
What a waste of excellent, safe water.
Quite a curious obsession we have with grass. Here in Florida lawn care is a borderline fetish which some people make their life’s work.
In any other country / culture anything that required the resources devoted to lawn maintenance would when cut be eaten by man or beast instead of bagged and thrown into a landfill.
No doubt that 100 years from now with the shortages we will soon be facing the practice of lawn care will be so impossible to believe that it will be categorized as an old wife’s tale or urban legend.
It must go back to people’s inherent need for an agrarian society. Other than that, I don’t understand the need either.
Mom and Dad retired to Snell Isle in St. Pete. There were a lot of young folks living there…not necessarily retirees. There was a neighbor down the street who would be working on his lawn up until (around) 10:00 p.m.
My folks did the right thing because of the homeowners ass-ociation rules. They had a sprinkling system that watered the lawn in the middle of the night and hired a grass cutting crew to come in every other week.
Oh yeah. I forgot. Then there are the types of special grasses to grow in the lawn.
Here, the weeds grow among the grasses. They are just part of the lawn, and one can’t tell the difference. It is all green.
One of the “weeds” that grows wild among the various types of grasses and other weeds is coriander.
One needs coriander for a dish one is cooking? One goes out in yard and picks it…fresh.
“It must go back to people’s inherent need for an agrarian society. Other than that, I don’t understand the need either.”
The funny part about it is the grass continues to grow during dry season, so it continues to have to be cut although it is still brown. Could it be the dew from the night? Certainly, this indicates the roots are still alive.
I have read this also happens in other places (painting the grass green), but I can’t remember where now.
“Also, foundation problems begin to appear...”
Gads. What kind of foundation problems? Living here in Panama, I had never heard of that.
I learn new things every day.
Lucky you! We've been having a drought for several years and everything is brown. I would love to see green again, except for weeds.
“In the latest incident, police said 66-year-old Ken Proctor was using a hose to water the front lawn of his suburban Sydney home when a man walking past made a remark about water waste.
Proctor then turned the hose on the passer by, prompting a fight. He was knocked the ground and was punched and kicked. He was treated by ambulance officers, but died later in hospital.”
Sorry, squirt me with a hose while I’m walking on a sidewalk (regardless of what smart-ass comment I may have made) I’d smash you in the mouth too. Just because you're old doesn't give you the right attack others without expecting retaliation, don't let your mouth (or hose) write a check your ass can't cash.
Come live in Panama.
I know. Easier said than done, but you are certainly welcomed here.
In the summer, the ground sometimes gets huge cracks and the foundation will as well if the ground is not watered occasionally. I’ve noticed houses that are vacant for too long a period of time usually have this problem.
‘However, because of all the rain we had THIS year, I only started watering about a month ago.’
You got ‘our rain’ here in Ohio, especially southern Ohio where I live. I usually cut my grass twice a week in August.
I’ve cut my entire yard six times since May of this year.
While I agree with your stance on this, I can’t see that turning the hose on the guy warranted a killin’.
That’s an anger management issue.
Our situation was a little more complex. We bought our house (central TX) in early 1999, and that summer was quite dry. No sprinkler system at the time. We found out later that the soil on the property has varying amounts of clay. Clay responds vigorously to moisture changes. As for the slab, first there was some settling on one side, which caused an in-slab plumbing leak, which led to more settling. $20K+ later, we've got more than 40 piers (each one 12 ft deep) supporting our house.
Yes, I think we did get YOUR rain. We usually have a dry summer, but we got so much rain we had flooding, roads underwater, a few dams compromised. It was wonderful! Sorry about your drought, though. We bought some cattle from drought-stricken states and they are underweight and sickly.
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