Pistachio Shells in our Front Lawn

Among other household decisions my parents make in order to gain that boost for our various plants and landscape settings. I'll start a little earlier for, you know, context's sake and stuff. I had a cup of tea. Usually I take a spoonful of loose black tea from one of the three aluminum canisters that we keep next to our coffee. (We also have green and white tea.) But the fancy box of Tazo: The Reincarnation of Tea caught my eye. Of course it did. That's what they pay the graphic designers for, right? For that ancient text faded into the background of the display, right behind the "caffeine free" notice.

Oh crap... this is caffeine free?

I had a cup of strong, gorgeous looking, smelling and tasting "deep, red tea made from hibiscus flowers, exotic herbs and natural tropical flavors." And had prepared another cup when my dog jumped onto my lap. I let her sniff the edges of my cup playfully. She inhaled spastically and then, when she grew bored, she exhaled sharply, sending an army of dog snot and flakes of whatever-was-on-the-floor-that-got-tangled-up-in-her-whiskers into my new cup.

Oh, stupid me.

Oh, silly dog with your big, bashful eyes.

So I cleaned my cup and glanced up onto the gray, unforgiving Iowa winter - snowless on January 13 - and saw the pile of pistachio shells. They were maybe four large handfuls in volume and congregated in the woodchips set by my father this past summer to house the liveforevers and rose bushes. Do they decompose that quickly in the winter? Do they compose that quickly at all? There are other such examples of my parents' ingenius ideas. Whether they are Korean or why-the-hell-not ideas... or both, I have no idea.

The potted plants are surrounded by up-turned eggshell halves. They smell like death. I remember once while I vacuuming, I crouched low to reach underneath the couch and was simultaneously befuddled and gagging.

I have a glass of orange Hi-c in the car, coming home with my father. He advised me to dump it on the lawn so the sugars and vitamin(s) could help the patch of grass grow and conform with the rest of the lawn. Magically maybe, switch species to whatever the the majority is. I don't know if it worked... I'm going to bet not.

While the eggshells may sit there for the entire rest of this year, the shells in our lawn may have to be dug up and discarded by the time Spring rolls around.