A Northwestern High School student once gave me a poster that said: "A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind." This made me feel pretty good, because the constructive clutter that covers my work area at school surely indicates a mind in excellent health, and my office at home reflects similar mental well-being.

This clutter is not looked upon with great favor by all humans, particularly my mother, my wife, and my principal, who jointly ascribe to the rule that "Cleanliness is next to godliness." If this maxim be true, then they must think I am teetering very near the Gates of Hell, even though my desks are merely disorganized and not dirty.

I have re-phrased the proverb mentioned above in the first paragraph to state: "A truly clean habitat is the sign of an unhealthy flora and fauna." This is not to say that we don't need clean air and pure water and good soil, but a pristine environment free of all natural clutter doesn't support much in the way of wildlife. Nature may be orderly, but it certainly isn't tidy and neat.

Somehow humans got the idea that houses needed to be surrounded by perfectly groomed expanses of lawns with every blade of grass exactly two inches tall. Somehow there developed an unwritten law that anyone with dandelions or unpruned shrubs was a social deviate. Somehow somebody imprinted on the minds of property owners and code writers that a dead tree near the front stoop was a menace to society, and that anyone who dared to let a yard get back to nature was a threat to the American Way of Life.

This may be all well and good for mower manufacturers, grass seed peddlers, and those folks that doctor lawns with everything from weed killer to green paint, but it isn't so great for plants and animals.

I have a colleague who devotes huge sums of money pampering his yard until it looks like a putting green at The Masters. Each spring he calls in a lawn-grooming company that sprays the yard with herbicides that wipe out any and all broadleaf weeds, including the dastardly dandelion. Then the company sprays some more with pesticides that kill any grubs or worms that might dwell in the soil, lest they nibble on tender grass shoots or roots. The company also applies a fungicide that destroys any microbes or fungi that might otherwise break down into nutrients any leaves or other organic matter. This may be just as well, because the colleague then rakes his lawn with what amounts to a long-handled, fine-toothed comb, thus eliminating the dreaded "thatch"--a horrible deposit of dead grass clippings that is the tell-tale sign of an inefficient, imperfect lawnsman.

Lastly, of course, the company showers the yard with gallons and gallons of perfectly-formulated fertilizer that during the next rain mostly washes from the lawn to the gutter, down the stream, and into the river, where it is just what millions of starving alage have been waiting all their lives for.

Recently I heard my colleague remark that he had not seen a robin in his yard for years, but now that all the earthworms are gone there should be no wonder. He and the lawn-grooming company have turned his yard into a bermuda grass monoculture that amounts to a biological desert devoid of other living things.

I really can't understand how we humans got into this mindset. Surely the British, eccentric as they may be, are much too practical to have invented so time-intensive an activity as keeping a lawn. The Italians never could have invented pasta had they been tied up every weekend with sharpening mower blades. And the French, I think, have been too busy populating France to get involved in grooming grass.

When my wife Susan and I bought the 12 acres that include Hilton Pond, the property had been regularly grazed and mowed and bush-hogged for many years. Aside from the large trees, there was little vegetation except for grass and a few shrubs around the pond. I realized after purchasing the property that keeping it clear-cut would completely consume my every afternoon and weekend, and probably would require acquisition of several large plant-eating machines that would be prohibitively expensive to run. I quickly decided that I would let nature take its course.

Fortunately my wife agreed to this policy of "benign neglect," and after only four years we now have splendid thickets, shrubby fields, a wooded stream, flowering trees and shrubs I didn't have to plant, and only a token lawn that grows slightly smaller each time I mow. When limbs fall from trees, or when I have to cut a little shrubbery so the mailman can still find the box, I put the twigs and prunings in one of the several brushpiles that serve as natural condominiums for wildlife from wrens to cottontail rabbits. I even have a brushpile in Hilton Pond itself, and it provides feeding, hiding, and breeding areas for all sorts of aquatic creatures from bass to turtles.

These days, although we live scarcely a quarter mile from York's city limits, we see more and more wildflowers and ferns springing up, and we have counted 139 kinds of birds on the property, including 17 species for which I've actually found nests. Add to that 11 varieties of wild mammals, 16 species of reptiles and amphibians, numerous breeds of fish, and an uncounted assortment of beetles, butterflies, and other invertebrates. I'm sure many of these organisms occur locally because I'm NOT always manipulating the environment.

Granted, my neighbors sometimes wonder about this laissez-faire policy of property management, but it doesn't really bother them, and we coexist peaceably. One quizzical friend was rather startled last fall, however, when he saw me grunting and groaning to plant a DEAD cedar tree outside my kitchen window. I explained that it just seemed like an appropriate thing to do, and my family has been rewarded every day since by birds that perch there and preen in the sun after dining at our feeders.

I realize many folks will disagree with my advocating that their yards be more natural, but I daresay my colleague with the perfect sterile lot is missing out on things that are tremendously fulfilling. I wonder if some of those things aren't actually more important in the long run than keeping up an impeccable stretch of lawn.

When WAS the last time the robins raised a brood outside HIS bedroom window?