We can't help but feel far more kindly disposed toward the grubs and other insects that may infest our lawns, along with the unwanted weeds that crop up when we're not attentively drawing them out of the grass manually, than we feel toward the ubiquitous, irritating telephone calls, door-knocks, and advertising leaflets that we are inundated with by lawn-care 'specialists'.

Those would be the very same companies who had, until a municipal and then provincial by-law was brought into effect banning the cosmetic use of pesticides and herbicides as identified and validated health and environmental hazards, continually sprayed area and neighbourhood lawns with chemicals proven to be injurious to the health of children, pregnant women, domestic pets and wild animals alike. Since it has been legally forbidden to use such dangerous chemicals so widely and cavalierly, those lawn-care specialists have taken to using alternatives.

That being so we still view their operations using 'organic alternatives' with suspicion. We never had any intention of seeking the services of such companies for the upkeep of our lawns and have never had any reason to change our minds about that decision. We view their operations with distaste and have no use whatever for their presence.

We were always amazed at the oblivious attitude about using herbicide/pesticide chemicals so carelessly on the part of many of our neighbours who did see value in having these services performed for them in desperate search of a perfect lawn. These are the very people, often enough, with small children in their homes and with pets to whom they profess they are devoted. Yet exposing children and defenceless pets, both vulnerable to the deleterious effects of such chemicals never appears to have entered the heads of their parents, and owners.

And if we would mention such details, we might be rewarded with a puzzled, querying glance, and a shoulder shrug. Yet, given all the controversy that arose from their use, and related news items proliferating in various media, pro and con, one might be forgiven for imagining that the data were out there.

All of which to say we were rather more than disconcerted yesterday when we drove back home from an errand, to see one of those tell-tale white signs plunged into our lawn, from a company called Weedman, indicating that our lawn had been sprayed against broad-leafed weeds. The hand-written portion of the sign gave a telephone number that turned out to be incorrect, a time of day that indicated it had been done in the wee hours of the night, and insufficient information about the type of product used.

When we called the company they suggested we check our porch mailbox to retrieve an invoice which would inform us of the correct address which the individual performing the process incorrectly took for ours. We dutifully wrote an explanatory note, walked the sign and the invoice up the street to the home of a younger couple with two infants and a dog, and nobody being at home at the time, left it all in their porch mailbox.