My favorite color is green

My favorite color is green, and this is my yard:

It crunches when I walk on it.

This is a Mediterranean environment; no one’s grass is green.  I’m not even sure it’s grass; maybe it’s crab grass because each year it gets likes this and happily, it comes back the next spring.  The thing is, it usually not this bad nor is it so prolonged.  The yard has been like this for a month and a half, which is a record and, summer’s not over yet.  It would be completely absurd and irresponsible to even think about watering the grass since it would reduce the water supply for something so frivolous, but I ‘ve noted that doesn’t stop others from trying.  (As if a green lawn is not going to give away a secret.) 

The yard is not the only thing suffering; all the vegetation has taken a hit.  It’s been a hard summer as the trees, bushes, and flowers have tried to bounce back from a particularly brutal winter with freezing temperatures and bone-chilling winds.  We trimmed back a lot of new growth from the year before this spring because it had died from the head spinning winds.  What’s left has had a hard time regenerating.

The ground is dry and the sun is unforgiving. I’d have better luck breaking cement than trying to break ground.  Even my succulents are crying out for water.  We never got the seasonal spring rains so reserves are plunging and plants are digging their roots in deeper in hopes of finding something to drink.  Those that are surviving have been around awhile with well-established roots or it’s due to us watering them from time to time in hopes they’ll make it until in the next rainy season.  This is a hard environment and I am learning just how unforgiving it can be.  I should be happy that cutting the lawn has been tremendously limited, but a green lawn is something I miss.  That, along with anything green around me, anything.