Week 4: homework and stuff

Gosh darn it..... I toasted two homework assignments this week... TWO!..... I mean, I really bombed them.  

• First one required us to look at photos of turf grass and pick out four correct attributes from a list of eight.... each slide had a different species of turf grass and a different set of attributes.  For each grass we had two tries to get the four right attributes and, for a number of them, both times I blew it.  Got 66% on this one.   
• The second one required us to look at photos of sick lawns and try to identify the pest causing the problem.   Some looked pretty obvious but others were a real bear to figure out.  Again, each photo came with two attempts to get the answer, and on a few of them I bombed both tries.  Got 70% on this one.

Lawns are just not my thing, so the subject matter was totally boring and the wording on the choices vs the information in the text books/videos/other resources was so randomized it ended up being a guessing game, with me getting nuked big time.   If we have to get 80% or higher on each gradeable item then I'm in a pickle, but if it's the overall grade that counts, mine is still well above 80%, so I'm in the clear.  Not sure if the MG boss will serve me up a remedial training assignment.... we'll see what happens.

Apart from that, it's been a typical week of homework......  : )

• Read more chapters from the text book and take two more quizzes, which I passed with flying colors.   
• Another crossword
• Read four different pamphlets on lawns - growing, care, pest management stuff.
• Watch a brief composting video
• Watch about 1 hour 40 mins of videos on lawns, lawn care, lawn pests etc.  Boooooooring! 

I think I mowed and edged that lawn we had in Florida so much I'm burned out on them.  David Quammen's piece "Rethinking the Lawn" from his insightful book The Boilerplate Rhino also gave me a sizeable kick in the pants on what I was doing with lawns, so now 8-10 years later, with my ever growing understanding of the need to practice planet-friendly living I just struggle to see anything good about lawns in today's world - anyone out there want to re-set my thinking?