Arosegirl, a bit late in answering, just logged on and your post...caught-my-eye...(No pun intended?)... I mentioned this...home remedy?...in a post on another forum some time ago. Several years ago, I woke up with my eyes hurting and lashes almost stuck together...rushed to the mirror and saw (Yuck!) white pus...so much of it I could literally push it out...gross...I was always healthy, so didn't know what was happening...No doctor to see on a Sunday...I called a drugstore and explained to a pharmacist about my eyes...He told me it was an infection...asked if I had any baby shampoo...I did, Johnson&Johnson...He said that it didn't really matter what brand...He said to mix one teaspoon of baby shampoo in a half a cup of barely warm water,hold eye open and gently splash the liquid in the eyes. He said that baby shampoo contained the same ingredients that a doctor uses to wash-out infected eyes. I had a glass with a small opening (similiar to a shot glass)...it "cupped" my eye...tilted my head back and poured it in...I've never been able to use eye drops because I could not stand the thought of anything touching my eyes...but, if you're in misery... There was some relief right away...a few hours later, I repeated the rinse. It released so much 'infection'...by the next day, it seemed cleared-up. I didn't see a doctor. Later, when my daughter got trash in her eyes from her job, and it irritated her eyes, I mixed up the baby shampoo and water...and she got relief right away. We have two outside cats...one got in a squabble with a stray cat and his eyes got infected...I poured the same mixture in/over his eyes and it cleared that up. Diluted, baby shampoo cannot hurt you, as far as I know. Nope, husbands don't ask the so-called-experts...they expect the wife to know everything..ha

I used to take them but not anymore. I don't like bar soap and they're so small you're starting with a sliver. Last month when I stayed a few days I used one of the bars of soap and left the others on the counter so they could reuse them. I did use the shampoos though. I like the small sizes and reuse the bottles. One place had shampoo in the little packets, similar to ketchup packets. I often wondered how much those things cost. I imagine the packet is much cheaper than a bottle, especially considering the volume they must use but I don't really think they're necessary. I pack a grooming kit with thinks I like and use that. I like body wash, not bar soap. I like liquid hand soap instead of bar soap. I now pack a small pump bottle of hand soap so I won't even use one bar in the places. Maybe I can ask for an extra couple coffee packets instead of the soaps! To me, a lot of these things are like the "food" on airliners. Why bother? I did see a thing on some show about motels recycling the soaps. Was interesting. I just thought by going to liquid they could eliminate a lot of that waste anyway. Essentially 2 or more (motel sized) bars of soap are used on each stay and sometimes each night. People steal them so they put out more, sometimes. As I recall they recycled the soaps and sent them to Africa or something. I don't remember the details.

So you're the sad lawn poster child :-( The good news is that you're doing everything I was doing when I first came to this forum in 2002, everything, so there's hope for you. You're on your way with shampoo. Your moisture penetration will improve greatly. You'll feel it underfoot after it rains. You should never have to reseed with KBG. It spreads by itself to fill thin areas. Could it be your trees have grown up to provide too much shade for KBG? It needs a good bit of sunlight every day. Chances are you don't have clay, but we don't get many people from Denver on this forum. Maybe there is clay there. There are two ways to check that. One is the bottle test. Get a bottle with straight sides and fill it half full of soil. Take a picture with a ruler next to the jar. Then fill the jar with water and a drop or two of shampoo or dish soap. Shake the jar until the soil is completely incorporated in the slurry. Set it down and wait 2 minutes. Take a picture with the ruler at 2 minutes, 2 hours, and 2 days. Sand and gravel will settle instantly. At 2 minutes you'll have an idea of sand, gravel, and silt. Loam will settle in 2 hours. The really fine particles will settle in 2 days. If you can see through the water after 2 days then you likely have no clay at all. Clay tends to remain suspended in the water for many days. The other way to check for clay is to have your soil tested at an excellent lab like Logan Labs. You've probably read some of those soil test posts here. Clay soils will have an exchange capacity up above 15. Having gone through all that, if you have an imbalance of salts (sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium) then the soil can act just like clay in almost every respect. But this can be fixed by rebalancing the salts. The good soil tests will give you that information and morpheuspa (a member of this forum) can help you get the right stuff added. I don't know what will happen to your water bill, but you are not watering right. Get some cat food or tuna cans and place them around the yard. Turn on your sprinklers and time how long it takes to fill the cans. That will become your watering time from now on. What changes is how frequently you water. The basic rules are that you deep water once per month when temps are below 70 degrees F. Water once every 3 weeks with temps in the 70s. Water once every 2 weeks with temps in the 80s. Water once a week with temps in the 90s. The reason this works is you are deep watering every time. When water is deeper in the soil where the temps are cooler, the water evaporates more slowly giving the roots longer to absorb moisture. This also forces the roots to grow down deeper giving you better drought resistance. Going hand in hand with watering properly is mowing properly. You should be mowing KBG or fescue at the mower's highest setting. Tall grass grows deeper roots and provides more shade on the soil helping to keep it cool. Organic fertilizers are made from animal feeds, so I like to go direct to the feed store and get it at "wholesale." Seriously you save about 5/6 the cost of organic ferts by buying 50-pound bags of soybean meal, cottonseed meal, alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow), corn meal, or corn gluten meal. Call your feed stores and see what they have and get prices. The application rate is 15-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Milorganite is fine if that's all you can find. That concoction of stuff you read about is, surprisingly, not all that bad. The guy who made that popular is Jerry Baker, "America's Master Gardener." Back when he was on TV everyone on these forums just laughed about his recipes. Now, however, with some more thought, there's really nothing wrong with those. You'll get better results from 15 pounds of alfalfa pellets, though. The same goes for compost. You'll get much better bang for your buck with organic fertilizer. If you want to fertilize, use fertilizer. If you want to kill weeds, spot spray with something like Weed b Gon or Weed b Gon Chickweed, Clover, and Oxalis Killer. Those won't kill grassy weeds. For those you'll need to identify them and get more specific help. Post pictures here and ask for help. Speaking of pictures, if you could post one that shows your shade situation that would help. You might be able to loosen the extra soil and get it out. Try loosening it with a rake and water washing to move it around or get it more level. Leveling is a different topic. You might search this forum for more info on leveling. That will give you more questions to ask. So essentially lawn care boils down to watering properly, mowing properly, and fertilizing. Those are in order of importance, by the way. If you're not watering properly, then the fertilizer choice is immaterial. Here are some motivational pictures. The first one shows the fertilizer effect of alfalfa pellets.Thanks to mrmumbles for this picture. The alfalfa pellets were applied in mid May. The picture was taken in mid July. You can clearly see the improved color, density, and growth. This next picture is morpheuspa's lawn. These lawns are all KBG in eastern PA. The big difference is that morph's is watered deeply once a week in the summer and he's mostly organic with fertilizer. This was taken in July several years ago. His neighbors water every day.

Pat, After MUCH trial and error over the years I ended up with the following, which works very well for me. In the spot intended for fabric softener I put about a tablespoon of Citric Acid Powder. Then where detergent goes I put about a tablespoon of STPP Powder, the same amount of Borax, and about 1-1/2 tablespoons of Charlies Powder. Except for the Borax, I buy everything on the internet, usually from Amazon or Ebay. I have a front loader, so the amounts may be different for a top loading machine. Before I found my magic mix, I tried all the name brand and natural brand Free of fragrances, etc. versions. None worked as well in my extra hard water and with my extra cranky skin, so I stick with my own mixture. I hope this helps.