Things to Do

I still feel that it is very important to aerate your lawn whether it is mechanical or through microbial process. Sort term mechanical aeration with core removal is the quickest most effective way to allow moisture and air to penetrate compacted roots.

How often can you aerate in one year? As often as you want!

After aeration you can always apply some form of organic matter, preferably a rich compost or if time or money constraints do not allow your second best product would be

We have several lawns that were heavily affected by brown patch and have already been aerated three times this year. Not only has the brown patch gone away, completely gone away, but also the lawns seem to be growing thicker and look more lush.

We are using less water to maintain these lawns which may be part of the solution the brown patch problem as well as conserving water.

If you walk on the grass and it springs back up you do not have to water. When grass does not come out Green Sense Lawn & Garden Microbial Treatment provides a blend of beneficial microorganisms, microbial stimulators and enzymes that will make locked soil nutrients available to plants, provides long term aeration and aids in maintaining soil health.

Grass should be mowed at the highest level of a lawn mower to help shade soil and roots from heat. If the grass looks unkempt just a few days after mowing, mow it again.

If you still cannot get used to the taller grass do not lower it to your desired height by scalping. Lower the level by one notch and then go back over it a few days later.

If you remove to much at one time you will expose the shaded tender grass to sunlight.

It would be like you living in Alaska and going to Mexico during the winter. Walking off the airplane and making your way directly to the hotel’s swimming pool. Ordering one or two margaritas, or maybe three or four because they are included in the hotel package, (I can’t remember) falling asleep only to wake up after the sun has set and the pool area has been converted to Congo night. But now the hotel has been able to save money since they use your glowing red skin as a campfire for all to dance around.

Apply Green Sense Kelp or seaweed will help protect plants from heat stress by using the natural plant growth hormones as well as other plant biostimulants found and made available to other plants by extraction from seaweed. These extractions have been proven to aid in root growth and moisture uptake during extreme heat conditions.

Kelp can be applied to all plants including grass.

Mulch is the best defense against water evaporation as well as weed prevention. Always maintain a two to three inch layer of mulch. Always, meaning periodically adding mulch to all beds. Go one step further and add a thin layer of compost before adding mulch.

Plant your fall vegetable seeds now. Kale. Lettuce, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, spinach, broccoli, peas, beets and carrots can be started now.

Plant tomatoes now.

Need trees to replace those lost in recent storms or are you planning something different where you once had a tree. Call now for an appointment.

Sally Sutton can be reached by phone at 972-864-1934 or by email

Carol Feldman can be reached by phone at 972-980-1730 or by email

The following story is not for the faint of heart and has nothing to do with landscaping; bugs or any related gardening topics. It is an account of a recent personal experience that I wanted to share with relatives and friends. So, you have been warned.

Was It a Dream?

I was a sleep when I felt a presence in my room. A rush of warm air filled the area that had recently been cooled by the air conditioner. A dim light filled my sight even though I did not open my eyes. Matter of fact I was too afraid to open them.

And then I heard a voice. A voice that I recognized from the past? A slight Spanish accent, a monotone level without much emotion.

“I couldn’t see a thing. I was so uncomfortable. My legs were so cramped. My arms were kept tightly in place under my body. I could not move.”

As the voice began to explain what he had gone through it became more agitated, the words came out quicker almost running together. I recognized the voice, but it had been so long ago I could not place it.

“I was in a very uncomfortable position my legs were folded under my body. My entire body was cramping. I knew I was in a cage or a box. I tried to get out, so I pushed with my arms upward trying to get my weight off of my arms, trying to burst through my confinement, I could not. I pushed harder and even harder. I could not breath, my heart started pounding. I was trying to suck in air, there was none! I wanted to scream, but I did not have enough air in my lungs to exhale.”

“Roll over. I needed to roll on to my side. I just had to flip onto my back. I COULDN’T!!!

I wiggled over to my left, maybe an inch before I was stopped. My shoulder pushed against something. Something hard. I wiggled more, pushing desperately against this… this? What???”

“How did I get into this… this? What???”

“My legs were bent at the knees, my butt was resting on my heals, my torso was lying uncomfortably, painfully over my arms. My arms were pressing down pushed by the weight of my own body. My arms were tucked under my body so tightly that I could not move them.”

“I breathed in… slowly trying to calm myself the way Mom taught me.”

“I exhaled even slower. After a while my panic subsided. I relaxed. I concentrated on my body, not my pain.”

As he tells me this, his voice becomes calmer. The words come out slower as if he was reliving the experience.

“Starting with my arms, I concentrated on relaxing, getting blood to flow through the tingling appendages. I continued to breathe, slowly. Breathing in, I raised my torso from my arms ever so slightly for as long as I could. Breathing out, I lowered my torso. I moved to my legs, my crumpled sore legs. As my body began to relax, as my lungs began to fill I was scared, but no longer panicked.”

“Then I started to think, almost with a clear mind. I tried to remember where I last was, how I got to where… I do not know. The dark cramped space was suffocating, frightening. I tried to push my legs back, it hurt, finally my toes touched the end. Whatever the end was. I pushed, whatever did not budge. I began to panic again. At first I trembled, then, I shuddered. I could not breath, I felt dizzy. Desperately I tried to relax again. Desperately I panicked. I am gone. I lost all feeling. I thought I had died.”

“Nothing! Darkness, pain, air are all gone. I felt nothing!”

“I came to. I heard footsteps approaching. They stopped.”

“I heard some rustling, scraping. They were going to let me out.”

“The rustling stopped. I pushed upward with whatever strength I had. It felt so good to stretch my back! I could feel my arms my calves, ohhhh! The stretching muscles hurt but in a strange good way.”

“Once out of the box I closed my eyes. The light was so bright. Before my eyes adjusted to the light, before I saw where I was, before I could escape I was pushed downward again. Forcefully! My head hit the side. The lid was slammed shut confining me once more. It is dark. Once more it was very dark.”

“My once controlled breathing lost all control. I was breathing hard, breathing fast. I got dizzy, my head became heavy. I felt faint. My head dropped. More pain as I realized that my hair was caught underneath the lid; the tightly closed lid. The pain lasted only an instant. I felt nothing. “

“I opened my eyes to a very bright, blinding light. This time I did not close them to readjust, wanting to see where I was, whom I was with. I could breath. My eyes hurt, my body was numb. I felt hands grab me under each arm. They forcefully lifted me up. The pain was unbearable, my knees buckled. I fell partially into the box. My left side burst with pain as it landed on the side of my confinement ripping my shirt, tearing the skin off my side.”

“The hands came at me again. I flailed my arms; I tried to fight them off. A tired, scared, muffled sound left my throat but did not exit my mouth. I lost the struggle as they picked me up once more, this time they steadied me. I was in such pain; there was not a muscle in my body that I could not feel. The bright lights burnt my eyes as I struggled to keep them open. I could not produce tears to moisten them. As I tried to blink the light away my eyelids felt like sandpaper scraping my corneas. My toe nails hurt, my fingers hurt from trying to push the ends of my confinement apart as I tried to escape. My hair roots hurt. Every inch of my body was in pain.”

“They gave me a glass. It was not cold; it was warm, room temperature. I gulped without tasting. I gulped again. And then I realized the taste was unlike anything I had ever tasted before. I gagged, my stomach recoiled as I tried to rid myself of this, this what?”

“A hand covered my mouth, I felt fingers clasp around my nose. I could not breathe.

My mouth became full. Full of what ever I had just drank. I wanted to spit it out. I could not. I needed to breath. I swallowed. They removed their hands from my mouth and nose allowing me to breathe in the much needed air.”

“Immediately my stomach began to burn as if I had just drank some of the strongest nastiest, cheapest alcohol available. I screamed in pain. My knees buckled. The hands that were holding me let me go. I fell as my body writhed in pain. I could not breath because of the pain inside my body. I felt hands push me back into my confinement. “NO, NO!” I plead even though no words came out.”

As he spoke to me his voice softened, resigned…prepared for whatever fate had befallen him.

“My eyes began to close again. The pain was subsiding. All around me was dark, dark. I felt no more.”

Then I realized that the dream was not mine. It may not have been a dream at all. I sensed him as I slept one night at the beginning of July. It was a strange, warm feeling that let me know that I was not alone in my room. With out a greeting, without an introduction, I knew that it was my second oldest brother, Fernando.

“And then I was freed from my body and I started to look for you. But something was wrong with you and I could not locate you, your aura. It had changed.

I kept searching until finally… I felt you, your being, still different but stronger, identifiable as you. Now that I have found you and that you know I am at peace, I can go on and look for the rest of the family.”

And with that, my brother Fernando, his energy, left me. I got cold as the air conditioner blew cool air around me. I felt lonely, but relieved to finally know what happened, why nobody had heard from Fernando in several years.

It was just before Christmas 2005 when Fernando called me. He was leaving Honduras and was going to Mexico City for the holidays. He asked if I could meet him there, he had not seen me in such a long time. With such short notice and knowing how important it was for me to spend the holidays with my family I declined.

On New Years Day 2006, Fernando called me once again to inform that he was leaving Mexico, heading back to Honduras.

Two days later I received an email concerning Fernando. Only four words: Call immediately regarding Fernando. A phone number was included. I called and despite numerous attempts from myself and with help from the long distance operator, we could not get through. I contacted AOL and asked them to check the email address since my reply email kept bouncing back. I was told that it was used only once and could no longer be accessed.

Fernando had lived a different life. More different than anyone I have ever known. He had issues that affected his way of thinking. He concocted ways to make his life easier, more prosperous with the least amount of effort.

To most of us his actions would be construed as dishonest, illegal or the lazy way of accomplishing something. To my siblings, my mother and myself it was common knowledge that he just did not understand, from a very young age, the difference between right and wrong. His physical age changed but his mental/emotional age quit developing at about the age of eleven.

He knew when he did something wrong, not because he deduced his actions, but because he always had to pay for them. From his early years in Catholic school he was misunderstood. So much so that my mother pulled him and the rest of us out of parochial school in protest of the appalling punishment thrust upon him by the God fearing nuns.

Public school worked for a while, but also seemed incapable of controlling Fernando’s behavior.

In the early 1960’s little was known about autistic children. Their poor behavioral skills were blamed on their parents and therefore were to be cared for by the parents. My mother took it upon herself to try and home school Fernando. With great effort and patience she was able to teach him simple math and regardless of his dyslexia enough reading and comprehension to get by.

Despite the love and support offered by his mother, Fernando learned that the hard way could be done easier. That is the route he took and it was through this route that Fernando found himself, more and more often running for his life. Literally!

Fernando found another easy money job while in Mexico. After making a deal with several customs agents in Mexico City offering to pay a certain amount of money per entry, he would fly to Cuba using his Ecuadorian passport and purchase Cuban cigars, which he would then smuggle into Mexico.

Finding the most affluent hot spots, top hotels and nightclubs in the capital city he would then offer these cigars to patrons who would gladly pay top dollar for the pleasure of these forbidden pleasures.

I am not sure, but I can guess that Fernando eventually decided to quit paying the custom agents and these gentlemen more then likely threatened him. Fernando fled from Mexico to Honduras.

In Honduras he got a job as an English teacher. It was during this time that he seemed to try and change his lifestyle, to honestly change his lifestyle.

It was in the capital, Tegucigalpa, where he began to put down roots. He remained in this city for the last five years of his life. He would correspond with my brother Laurence by mail on a regular basis and occasionally by phone. His letters to Laurence usually included awards from his school as well as notes of appreciation from many of his students. Despite the fact that he was dyslexic, Fernando was able to teach his students how to read and to use proper grammar.

I later found out that he was able to do this because he would get to school each morning around six and write his whole class curriculum for the day on a series of portable blackboards.

One of the directors of the school wrote a letter of approval describing how early one morning he saw a dim light on in one of the classrooms. He cautiously approached and carefully peaked into the classroom. Fernando would write a sentence and then stand back to read it correcting any mistake. This routine was repeated after each sentence.

Was it my voracious reading that created this Dream/Apparition?

I know that recently I have heard and read books and articles about escalating kidnappings and ransom demands in Mexico, furthermore I just finished reading “Fingerprints of God” by Barbara Bradley Hagerty. Maybe my desire to know what has happened to Fernando and recent events influenced me. BUT it seemed real, more so then a dream.

Because of past similar experiences that occurred to me and other generations of family members, I wonder if it was an apparition. I wonder if we do have a gene that allows us (don’t laugh) to communicate with loved ones who have moved on or are still in this world, but far away.

As for my aura being changed, I did go through a rough spot in my life that started during the year of 2006. I wonder if my mood change caused me to emit a different aura or “locator” making it harder for Fernando to find me. I now am in a better place in my life causing my “locator” to revert?

I will never know what really happened to Fernando. Calls to the Ecuadorian Consulate and to the police in Mexico DF did not help at all. There was too much crime at the time and leads were not found. I can only hope that if Fernando is dead, as I suspect he is, that his death was not as agonizing as described by him during his apparition. I pray now after all he suffered through in his life that he is at peace.