Mother's Day flowers, they ain't

We appear to be fighting one nasty battle with dandelions this year. (Actually, I don't know that it's necessarily a fight because that would imply that there are two sides participating. We pretty much just watch the dandelions take over the place and then moan and groan about it.)

David and I have never really treated our 'yard' like a yard because, well, it isn't one. It's two steps away from being a field. Maybe that's why we have never fertilized or treated or whatever it is that you do to a yard. Either that or the fact that we're lazy. That could be it...

Now we are paying the price with one of the most horrid dandelion outbreaks I have ever seen. Going out and mowing the little fuzzy boogers down only perpetuates the cycle and will multiply your numbers. Damn Mother Nature and all of her wicked, wily ways!

I tried to convince Ella to go pick all the yellow flowers she could and I would pay her a penny for each one. That didn't fly. Looking at this picture, I wouldn't take me up on it either.

Yep, that's Lilly in there, almost hidden in the field of fuzz.

Is this happening just here in my area (because it's not just my little piece of neglected ground, these suckers are all over town)? Is there a dandelion epidemic?