we have a next door neighbor who, to our horror, cleared an acre of mature hardwoods in order to put in a perfect green lawn. in the inverted moral universe of suburban america, we are bad neighbors because we don’t spend our weekends relentlessly hunting down every last accursed dandelion in our yard, resulting in the occasional puff of airborne seeds that float westward to infest the purity of our our neighbors’ carpet of kentucky bluegrass. the reason we let the dandelions go is that we have some other neighbors, two hives of them to be exact, who rely on dandelions as one of their preferred early season nectar sources. we are, as a result, bad neighbors to our bad neighbors. and good neighbors to our good neighbors. our bad neighbors play by the rules and dutifully mow their yard every week. our good neighbors fly in swarms and have stingers. this makes perfect sense to us. it’s the rest of the world who has it all wrong.

dandelions

everywhere, minnesota