Weeding

A beautiful morning, the air cool, sunlight glinting through the trees, sparkling with sprinkler dew. Perfect for weeding, so I set my morning coffee on a ledge by my front door and begin to yank up plants that tend to invade the garden, burmuda grass, spurge, Mexican primrose. The primrose, once a popular drought tolerant landscape species has fallen out of favor because of its tenacity. Ours stowed away in a pot from the nursery. The plant I had purchased has long since passed away, but the tiny sprig of primrose that had hidden under its foliage crept down the pot and furrowed into the soil. Now it has spread across the entire front garden. In springtime we enjoy a fleeting burst of pale pink bloom. So why pull it up? If I don't, the plant crawls up and over all the other species and chokes them to death, a slow strangulation followed by pink flowers. It's not a fair trade.

And weeding relaxes me. I get to spend time in the garden yet still feel productive. I'm not just lolling around, enjoying the cool morning air and fresh scent of the earth. See this handful of weeds? That's me being industrious, earning my keep, making my puritan and Victorian workaholic ancesters proud. At least until angry ants swarm my feet and bite me. The garden ants, a particularly irritable breed, will froth into a frenzy at the slightest provocation. What goes on below ground to give them such short fuses? The teen ants leaving their dirty socks on the dining room table? Mother-in-Law ant wants her tupperware back, but the ant-dog ate it. Father ant snores all night long. The Ant boss is an insensitive S.O.B., gave another bad annual ant evaluation. "Your dirt-carrying performance is below expectations." Do ants have a metaphorical set of ant-like irritants interupting the zen flow of their days too?

 Their anger only equaled by their own Victorian work ethic, thay can build a mound in a day. Not a neat conical hill like gentler ant species create, more a formless pile, sand and ant-mouth-sized bits of soil flung about. A lesson in watching them: don't build fast or when furious. (Of course I already learned that one during our 12 year bathroom remodeling project.)


My lone nontoxic defense against their bites is the garden hose. When they bite me, I retaliate with a deluge, knocking their pile flat. Ant Armageddon. Never a natural bug squasher, the ant slaughter is out of character. But they are like insect weeds in my garden. If I let them flourish, the garden will be overrun with angry ants, leaving no safe footing for the rest of us critters. Like the stray ginger cat who lives in an old bath tub in my carport (from bathroom remodel #2 in its 5th year, still no finished walls). I kill for his comfort. . .and my own. Sorry Buddha. Sorry God, the one who used his lightening finger to write the Ten Commandments in stone on Mount Sinai. FYI: I also swat house flies.

The ant bites win this morning and I head back into the house to continue weeding. Where does all this clutter come from? Trees (paper), old dinosaurs (plastic toys, containers, bags, wrapping. . .), fabricated  combinations from the periodic table of elements. . . star dust. How can I throw out old star dust?