Ever since one of the doctors, who regularly disseminates real wisdom a page or two from here, convinced me to surrender part of my girth, my lawn mowing has become more exciting. Even though I have created flowerbeds on the steepest spots, there are an increasing number of places where the mower balks at my commands.

As I have confessed in previous passages, I generally, or at least used to, think of the lawn as the space between flowerbeds.

First a review of history. It all started with a new house and a bag or two of grass seed 13 years ago. Each season it seemed that the mower got a little braver and wondered further and further from the house. In other words, much of my yard resulted as my mower reclaimed an old pasture bit by bit.

What we didn't have in quality we made up in quantity. The final step came last year when we convinced a waterway and gutter to become part of the yard. With that done, there was no place for the mower to go but into the woods, down vertical banks or across the road. At that point I surveyed my mix of grass, weeds, dandelions and white clover and vowed improvement. It was so bad that I sprayed a small section. To my joy, the weeds and white clover disappeared. To my chagrin, a bumper crop of crab grass replaced them.

In another area, I rented a fancy over-seeder and worked up a real sweat while going through several bags of grass seed. It was one of those that disturbed the soil rather nicely. It also awoke every crab grass seed in the area. Since my knowledge level forbade any spraying over new plantings, I confess that I must part the crab grass leaves to find the dainty seedlings I hoped for.

When I reworked the waterway/gutter last summer I knew that that area could take heavy flows of water during storms. After seeding, I applied several hundred dollars worth of jute matting to stabilize the situation. I was amazed at how well it worked.

Under the matting I got a beautiful stand of grass. I should have gotten another roll since, unfortunately, I did get a wee bit of erosion along the edges of the matting. It was one of those things that needed fixing, but was never so bad that the mower couldn't hop across.

Then we got the eight plus inches of rain, in three storms in four days, several weeks ago and the repairs were urgent. Again, I coated much of my patch up work with the matting. Again the results were much quicker and, I suspect, will be far superior to spots where the seed was just raked in.

Is my improvement plan moving ahead? Maybe. From a distance, my rolling hills look green and beautiful. Up close we have a varied and interesting mix of plants. Using the matting in difficult spots worked miracles. The chemicals and the reseeding have brought unintended results.

I hope our township officials make good on their promise to keep the area like it is and rural, because I fear it will be a long time before my lawn is ready to move to suburbia.