Without a shadow of a doubt this house of ours, our property has the most pathetic lawn on the street. There was a time when we were really proud of that lawn, it was thick and lush and quite lovely. The superior contrast between ours, just walking on it and then treading on our neighbour's was amazing, and they paid for a gardening contract, while we've always done our own gardening. Things began to go awry about three years ago when we started noticing crows on the lawns everywhere, picking away at what we assumed were grubs feasting on the roots of grass, and we were right. They picked lawns apart in huge gaping clumps, destroying everyone's well-cared-for lawns.

People tried all kinds of remedial actions, from sprinkling nematodes or chemicals, or other remedies, and nothing quite seemed to work. Finally some replaced their lawns by removing the old grass and re-sodding, others relied on seeding, and eventually most lawns began to take on the semblance of orderly propriety as nature hadn't intended. Ours recovered as well because we re-seeded. Oddly enough it seems only the front lawns, not the backyards are affected.

The crows returned, less numerous and destructive, but they went at it again. One neighbour who had painstakingly set about picking out the grubs and destroying them fared no better than those of us who just shrugged and got on with life.

Now that spring has convincingly arrived, the lawns are all laid bare, and some look really, really good. Ours looks dreadful, quite awful. Yesterday my husband got out his thatching device and de-thatched our miserable lawn, dredging up enough detritus to fill yet another of those huge compostable bags that the municipality is so diligent about hauling off to their giant composting piles. And then he meticulously sprinkled a good layer of garden soil on all the bare patches, over fertilizer-infused grass seed he had bought. Raked it all over, and considered it a job well done, having taken him the better part of the afternoon into early evening.

Now we will wait, we will see what transpires. Just as we did last year. You'd think the crows would express some kind of gratitude to us; we're the ones they follow, ambling through the ravine, leaving peanuts for squirrels which they also take advantage of, securing them in their beaks and bashing them against any nearby surface to extract the nuts. They recognize us and what we're doing in there, but deign not to when we're in our own home environment, drat them.