Urban vs Rural

For the past four years we had rural, riverfront property and prior to that semi-rural riverfront property right on the edge of a very small community (about 200).  We got used to the peace and quiet.  Then we moved back into an urban setting and while the neighbourhood is upscale and quiet, I find it a lot noisier than our last house.  Folks here are attached to their power lawn mowers that are about three times as loud as our battery operated lawn mower.  They love their weed wackers and leaf blowers.  It's enough to give anyone a headache!

They are also addicted to using a certain lawn maintenance service to apply obnoxious chemicals on their lawns.  I swear they do the weeding and feeding for our whole street except us.  As a result, here it is into November and everyone's grass is looking quite green while ours is looking a bit anemic.  We will have to address this in the spring but for now I don't mind.  Our lawn was obviously used to being chemically treated, something we do not believe in doing so I will start with a spreading of compost within the next couple of days along with an organic fertilizer.  That should tide the yard over nicely until the spring.