Conquering the wildness

Who will win? The tall grass and the jungle thicket, or me?

I wield one form of vorpal blade or another. Hacking back the already gone to seed grass with the weed whacker, spewing bull thistle juice, a salad of miscellaneous broadleaf weeds and poison ivy, I move around the yard.

Little rewards emerge: a small flash of red amongst the hostas and I find wild strawberries. The chipmunks usually get them, or at least I blame them when I can’t find any. Wild roses appear as I scythe the grassland threatening to hide the mailbox, and the Leatherwood sign hanging beneath it. I notice the willow sticks marking the ends of rows in the garden. Ron and Jim, whose thumbs must be greener than mine, have even made these garden markers sprout leaves.

Dead branches in the hedge row beg pruning. Grass in the grape vines needs to be pulled. I’ve run out of gas in the trimmer. I’ve assigned Savannah to pick up the rocks that the garden planters have tossed into the grass and to mow more of the lawn.

Already it’s lunch time. And a vinegar customer is on his way.

I’ll get back to my feeble attempts to control nature this afternoon.