Cutting down the wild kingdom

One of the things I like to brag about is I don't own blight. It's sort of my civic-minded merit badge in a city that inspired the term ruin porn. Yesterday, I started to eliminate the blight at the Accidental Duplex.

Now I am only about 99 percent sure I own the duplex, but I am 100 percent sure that I own a large chunk of the vacant lot next to it. The space where three or four houses used to stand is now fallow urban prairie, growing wildly and collecting trash. Job No. 1 became taming what was quickly becoming wild kingdom.

The original plan called for a fast pickup of the trash and then giving the grounds a quick mow with a friend's lawnmower before winter sets in. I figured this entire job would take about an hour, maybe two, including the time to push the lawnmower half a dozen blocks to the Accidental Duplex and back again. So I bribed my friend with a six-pack of LaBatt Blue for lawnmower time and I shared one with him while watching part of the Lion's game before heading out.

It didn't take long for reality to remind me these sorts of projects always take twice as long on a good day, even on beautifully crisp autumn days when the sun shines on you. Picking up the trash easily took half an hour, including sorting out the recyclables. Then giving it a once over with the push mower at the highest its deck would raise took hours. Those weeds and near bushes of crab grass didn't go down without a fight. So it went from looking like this:




To this:



The mower constantly kicked up new trash I had no idea was there. By the end I had uncovered numerous empty water bottles, dead chip bags galore, a "Celebrate Learning" Frisbee, an empty bottle of laundry detergent, an election yard sign, shredded tires for a car and a lawnmower, a left shoe and parts of a car frame. I believe this is just what gets thrown and blown into the lot over a few years. I don't think anyone purposely dumped garbage here, which is not an uncommon occurrence in Detroit. Here is a sampling of what I pulled from the budding urban prairie.



After the game, my friend called to check on me and his mower. I missed the call. An hour later he decided to check on me with his two dobermans to make sure I was still alive since the sun was going down. He caught me while I was finishing mowing. Mowing ate up so much time, I didn't even have a chance to cut back scrubs trees and dead limbs. I was able to give his mower the workout of its life. His yard is the typical Detroit postage stamp size front and back city lot. The Accidental Duplex's vacant lot is easily 10 times that size if not bigger. But the Craftsman push mower did the trick and cut grass like a champ. At least now it looks like someone cares a little for the place.