Did you hear the one about the stolen front lawn?

EDMONTON — Denise Thompson had a beautiful front lawn, thick and green. It was where her four children and two dogs played, and where she drank coffee on sunny mornings.

Then someone stole it. They didn’t even leave a note.

“Now my place looks like I’m a farmer who just plowed and is ready to put their seeds down,” she said Monday.

Thompson and her children went to visit her husband in Stettler Friday morning. They returned to their Kilkenny neighbourhood home Sunday afternoon. The family entered through the back door and everything seemed fine.

Then Thompson opened the blinds on the large picture window in the front room.

“Oh my God,” she thought. “Where is my grass?”

She went outside to the swath of ugly, brown dirt that had replaced her lawn. She thought there might be a note to explain an accident, like when someone dings your car in the mall parking lot. There were no clues.

Thompson canvassed neighbours and several reported a white truck and trailer parked at her house. No one thought it was suspicious. Just another landscaping job.

Thompson believes that a landscaping company messed up the address on a job.

Though she laughed about the bizarre disappearance, the potential cost of replacing the greenery is on her mind. Her insurance company is baffled by her story and hasn’t decided if she will be compensated.

“My boys are excited they don’t have to mow the grass, but I really need the people who did this to come forward. I can’t afford this.”