MANURE,that word from the Latin for Manus, HAND or by HAND

Sunday, 6th May2012.     A Jeremiad Upon Wasteful Lawns.    Most people think of manure as nasty, smelly stuff, and some of it is But, In reality the word manure comes from the Latin  'manu' or 'manuopere meaning by hand or to work by hand. Manure is that which is worked or spread by hand. Remember that the brilliant Oscar Wilde said that money was like manure; it was a great asset or fertilizer if it was spread around thinly, but in great heaps it stinks! Yes, I concur.
   In affluent suburbia I see those lovely green lawns. How back East they are. Proper looking and all that. I have a neighbor who has a fine vegetable garden in her front yard, (it really is amazing and all organic) and when she was complimented by me she said "ABUNDANCE!" But, this is not the East, at least climate wise. The affluent pay thousands to keep up these lawns with water, a lot of which trickles into the gutters and goes down the drains to the sea. That is another problem. And, they fertilized heavily to "green up" the lawns, and they pay the gardener to come regularly and mow it. This is where it gets bad. Then, the gardener takes the clippings to the land fill---I've asked them where they dump the cans of clippings; "in the landfill". I ask them to give me the clippings. They gladly and kindly do that. This save them gas money to the dump, and we get to talk for a few minutes, something that is anathema to the affluent, entitled folk.
    The grass clipping are so rich, that if left in the cans for only one day they begin to heat up and ferment. It really gets hot, hot! You could bake a ham in it; one group of students in London did exactly that, except they used Sycamore leaves, very English indeed, eh? I might cook hotdogs. This plant generated heat kills weed seeds and gets the clippings ready to spread. This now called "green manure." All that nitrogen fertilizer and water are ready to spread by hand, to MANURE on my garden beds. I use gloves, sometimes if I'm playing the master gardener role. The vegetables such as tomatoes thrive on it. After I immediately wash in the "green manure" with very little water, releasing nitrogen, enzymes, trace elements, the tomatoes respond immediately. That nice, thin Oscar Wildian layer of decomposed plant matter makes the tomatoes (and other plants really perk up).
   So, the "Affluent in Paradise" are running their money straight down the drain, and then they lament at cocktail parties how we, "Oh yes, should be more conscious of water usage because one day we won't have any for our grandchildren." All grandchildren, or only theirs? I don't really know.
   I wonder why they don't go out on gardening day and trash pick up day, see what the gardeners are doing, (they always do a good job),  look at the fertilizer and pesticide rich morning "juice" going down the drains, and get a clue. It's not the gardeners' faults. There's a profound Hebrew  saying that I like, maybe like too much; "the fish stinks from head down."