When Gene Aliverti retired, he thought he'd putter around the lawn - all 12 acres of it.
His superlawn surrounds the homes of three generations of Alivertis in this town near Walla Walla.It's equal to about 91/2 football fields, or roughly two par-5 holes at a golf course.
Aliverti, 60, doesn't know of anybody else who maintains as much grass.
"Nobody's that crazy," he said with a chuckle.
For 50 years, the Aliverti family grew onions on the acreage. They stopped seven years ago because of white rot, a fungus that rots onions and is hard to remove from soil.
They switched to wheat until Aliverti retired from farming four years ago. His three sons and daughter were not interested in taking over the family business, so the 16-acre field sat fallow.
But the dust and weeds soon became a nuisance, so Aliverti covered three-quarters of it with grass. He plans to plant the final four acres with grass.
Aliverti and his oldest son, Steve, who lives two doors down, do all the maintenance.
Steve usually handles the mowing. He uses a tractor to pull a 71/2-foot wide mower. It takes about six hours a week.
It takes Gene Aliverti about seven days to deep-water with irrigation pipes and sprinklers. But the drought-resistant variety of fescue grass he grows has roots that reach several feet into the soil, so it only needs to be watered about three times each growing season.
Bill Griffith, an instructor for Walla Walla Community College's turf management program, notes that the greenery reduces erosion, helps purify the air and is more attractive than parched earth. Large fields of grass also moderate the temperature, Griffith added.