(No, did I really go through all of 2011 without posting? Guess it was a busy year..)
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Leather gloves, goggles, hat, boots. I march to the garden shed.
"What are you going to do?" my husband asks.
"Damage!" I reply.
He laughs.
He knows where I am headed. Out back to liberate the poor cedar tree from the Himalayan blackberries.
I use the loppers first, to clear away the outer shoots and get my bearings. I work my way to the interior, where the canes are large enough to frame a house. The thorns could pierce an elephant’s hide. Or at least my leather gloves.
I hack and chop, and trace the first plant to its base. Next I deploy the shovel. The root ball is huge, but the soil is loose, and I am able to pry the evil thing from the ground.
It has obviously been here a long time. I have no illusions of making this our final battle. There are still runners in the ground, and seeds everywhere. I can’t get them all.
Long ago, some immigrant carried a seed from another land. Whether in his pocket or in his gut matters little. A blackberry seed sprouted, took root. A bird found the bush and made a meal. It then flew west, and pooped this monster out - into my back yard.
A descendant of that bird is scolding me now from a neighboring tree. I am destroying its Summer buffet. Sorry, my friend. This plant was not meant to be here. I whack farther into the thorny jungle, wreaking my revenge for the native vegetation it has usurped. Take this for the Mahonia you’ve choked out! And this for the huckleberry! Here's one for you, native blackberry! And this one is for the trillium, and the fern!
The canes have snaked their way into the lower branches of the cedar, up and over and into the tree farm on the other side of the property line. Oh, you think you can escape by going over the border? I scoff. Well, think again!
My husband comes to check my progress. "I need a hatchet," I say, as I uncover a particularly large and stubborn root. He shakes his head. "You’ll either dull the hatchet, or miss and hit your foot." Hmm, those are my choices? "I need a hatchet," I repeat, and he resigns himself to fetching what will certainly be the implement of my destruction. He’s good that way.
I excavate the root, and two more besides. The canes take their revenge by tearing holes in my clothes and my skin, and falling on my head as I pull them down from the tree. They reach out and trip my feet as I toss another one of their fellows upon what will be its funeral pyre.
Over the course of two hours, I have liberated the cedar’s trunk and its lower branches, and have hacked a path far into what this morning was a blackberries-only club. Jam? HA! You can keep your jam! Give me wide-open spaces! I sink my shovel into the base of another clump of canes when the bird’s screeching ceases, and I hear wings fluttering overhead. My hat deflects the attack, but I decide to retreat. I don’t want to risk disturbing a nest, even though I suspect these birds are collaborators in the invasion.
I stow the tools, and assure my husband that he will not have to take me to the ER. I still have both my feet, all my fingers, and most of my blood. And there is a serious dent in the Himalayan jungle in our back yard.
For now.
Leather gloves, goggles, hat, boots. I march to the garden shed.
"What are you going to do?" my husband asks.
"Damage!" I reply.
He laughs.
He knows where I am headed. Out back to liberate the poor cedar tree from the Himalayan blackberries.
I use the loppers first, to clear away the outer shoots and get my bearings. I work my way to the interior, where the canes are large enough to frame a house. The thorns could pierce an elephant’s hide. Or at least my leather gloves.
I hack and chop, and trace the first plant to its base. Next I deploy the shovel. The root ball is huge, but the soil is loose, and I am able to pry the evil thing from the ground.
It has obviously been here a long time. I have no illusions of making this our final battle. There are still runners in the ground, and seeds everywhere. I can’t get them all.
Long ago, some immigrant carried a seed from another land. Whether in his pocket or in his gut matters little. A blackberry seed sprouted, took root. A bird found the bush and made a meal. It then flew west, and pooped this monster out - into my back yard.
A descendant of that bird is scolding me now from a neighboring tree. I am destroying its Summer buffet. Sorry, my friend. This plant was not meant to be here. I whack farther into the thorny jungle, wreaking my revenge for the native vegetation it has usurped. Take this for the Mahonia you’ve choked out! And this for the huckleberry! Here's one for you, native blackberry! And this one is for the trillium, and the fern!
The canes have snaked their way into the lower branches of the cedar, up and over and into the tree farm on the other side of the property line. Oh, you think you can escape by going over the border? I scoff. Well, think again!
My husband comes to check my progress. "I need a hatchet," I say, as I uncover a particularly large and stubborn root. He shakes his head. "You’ll either dull the hatchet, or miss and hit your foot." Hmm, those are my choices? "I need a hatchet," I repeat, and he resigns himself to fetching what will certainly be the implement of my destruction. He’s good that way.
I excavate the root, and two more besides. The canes take their revenge by tearing holes in my clothes and my skin, and falling on my head as I pull them down from the tree. They reach out and trip my feet as I toss another one of their fellows upon what will be its funeral pyre.
Over the course of two hours, I have liberated the cedar’s trunk and its lower branches, and have hacked a path far into what this morning was a blackberries-only club. Jam? HA! You can keep your jam! Give me wide-open spaces! I sink my shovel into the base of another clump of canes when the bird’s screeching ceases, and I hear wings fluttering overhead. My hat deflects the attack, but I decide to retreat. I don’t want to risk disturbing a nest, even though I suspect these birds are collaborators in the invasion.
I stow the tools, and assure my husband that he will not have to take me to the ER. I still have both my feet, all my fingers, and most of my blood. And there is a serious dent in the Himalayan jungle in our back yard.
For now.
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