At War With Weeds

As this coronavirus pandemic continues there have been many articles published about the medical, mental and culinary benefits of gardening.

The unidentified weed that is everywhere in
my garden in 2020. (Margo D. Beller)

No one talks about weeding.

At this time of year, after several heatwaves, there is usually a short spate of time when it is suddenly cooler and less humid, a time the media weathercasters invariably call "a taste of Fall." This is when I usually walk out my front door and around my property and see where the weeds are running rampant.

I write a lot about weeds, and that is because it is frustrating to deal with them year after year. It is a Sisyphusian battle because the types of weeds growing where I don't want them will continue to come back unless I do something drastic, and even then that will be only a short-term fix. I have one area where locust trees - actual trees - are growing from a long underground root (the parent plant is at the curb) and popping up under my andromeda shrubs surrounded by Sensitive ferns (that is their name, not their demeanor). I have neither the time, energy nor back strength to disrupt this area with shovel or backhoe so I must monitor it carefully and regularly use the lopper to cut the saplings to the ground and at least slow the growth.

This grassy weed gives me the satisfaction of
clearing a large area quickly, at least until it
grows back. (Margo D. Beller)

This year there have been other weeds that started popping up everywhere in profusion, perhaps because of the cooler, wetter spring. They are in all my garden plots, taking advantage of the deer netting, requiring me to make the effort to get behind or under to get at them. Lately, they've started looking like small trees. Worse, I can't even identify them. But to paraphrase what Justice Potter Stewart once said about obscenity, I know them when I see them and I've seen them off the paths I hike. If left unchecked they WILL become trees.

And then there is my balky back, which seizes up on me at this time of year because of the effort of battling weeds. 

Every year, I sit on my low bench, lean forward and pull. After a while I realize I can't sit up. This is when I usually stop and when I painfully rise this is when the spasms begin. A few weeks ago, when there was still light at 5 a.m., I worked in the area at the side of the house (where the andromeda shrubs are) and along the front garden plots (which are more difficult to get at because of the deer netting). After that I had to stop because of work but the rest of the week got hot and humid and then we were hit by Tropical Storm Isais, which brought down a lot of tree limbs. By the time I had collected and put them at the curb, my back was plenty sore. 

This area was cleared of grassy weeds but
I can only do so much. (Margo D. Beller)

That's how things stood until last week, when a friend sent me two of the exercises she does to relieve her back pain. It made a great and immediate difference. By the weekend, when I knew I'd have more than the short time between rising and work during the week, I girded for battle (or should I say "girdled"), warmed up my back and hips (something I should've been doing all along) and went out with my gloves, pail, pruner and my walking stick, which I found to be helpful in taking my weight as I stood up or bent forward to pull out the weeds, sparing my back.
Weeds are any plants that pop up in the wrong place. I've found some weeds pull out cleanly while others break at the top and you have to use both hands to pull the rest of it, with roots, out. Even then, there might be more below. Some weeds are grassy and can at least provide the satisfaction of clearing an entire area - for a time. Other weeds are vines. Ground ivy is a particular nemesis in my yard, as is the vine I can't identify that seems particularly fond of thorny wild rose bushes. However, lately I've also been seeing more wild strawberries, which provide smaller, drier versions of the stuff you get in the market. I can live with these, and the robins and other fruit-eating birds will enjoy those I don't choose to pick for my cereal.

Wild strawberries are a weed I tolerate. (Margo D. Beller)

I should also add even nonpoisonous weeds can have consequences. The plants have natural allies - the insects that use them for shelter. I was reminded of that when both my ankles suddenly felt as tho' they were on fire. I knew the cause - the flies referred to as "no-see-ums." I was not wearing ankle braces and the flies had free rein. I may have won the war but my ankles will now itch for days to come.

Ultimately I spent three hours, in several stages, to get around the areas I wanted to clear, pulling the weeds that were crowding the plants I want growing in the areas. As I worked I could hear chickadees, a Carolina wren, some jays and a catbird mewing. I was shielded from the sun by the trees as I worked, and there was a cooling breeze. Were it not for the physical effort of weeding it would've been an enjoyable time outside.

Everything I pulled is now atop the compost pile, covering the vegetable scraps feeding the worms. I have a feeling of accomplishment, and that should last at least until the next time I walk around the yard and see what has popped up in my absence.

Atop the compost pile. (Margo D. Beller)

At some point, as the days continue to get shorter, I will be cutting back the garden for its - and my - winter rest.  As usual at this time of year, I can't wait.

Sad at Midsummer, Again

Flowers from my garden, 2020 (Margo D. Beller)

Every year, in late July going into August, I start feeling sad. Perhaps it is the continued heat and humidity forcing me inside with the air conditioning while the weeds proliferate. Perhaps it goes back to the days when I was a student and I knew that, come September (or August when I was in college), it would be time to go back to school and I'd lose my freedom. Or perhaps it is seeing the darkness in the early morning when it was once light, or seeing the sun's arc getting smaller as the days get shorter.

So it is this midsummer, except it is worse because this is not a normal year. It is the year of the coronavirus and things may never be the same again.

My life is one example. Doing simple things such as going to the supermarket or getting my hair cut has become more complicated. I have been working from home since March and will continue working from home through the end of the year, and likely beyond. I am OK with that. I find I am less and less comfortable walking outside where I can come into contact with people except for when I can get myself out early to walk on a trail and listen for any birds. But getting up and out is getting harder to do and I am feeling disconnected from nature. I try to go out on the weekends for a walk with MH or to run errands such as to my favorite farm market, particularly now that it is tomato season.

Tomato, basil and peppers, 2020
(Margo D. Beller)

Here, too, things have become complicated. I must be masked, stand six feet from a guy behind the vegetable bins, pointing to what I want, asking it not "be so wilted." Where once zinnias and other flowers grew for picking, every inch of land is filled with a variety of vegetables. That's a good thing because this farm feeds not only casual shoppers like me but members of its CSA community plus it donates produce to local organizations feeding those who would otherwise go hungry. (But for the grace of God that could've been me, too.)

To keep myself from feeling too sad, I think of what COVID-19 hasn't changed.

My flowers - yellow coreopsis, white daisies, purple coneflowers, goldenrod and the deep red flowers of the cannas - are in bloom. If I can't pick the farm's flowers, I can selectively pick my own.

My vegetables are growing, finally. I am waiting for a dozen little green cherry tomatoes and two large, still-green Italian frying peppers to ripen, and there will be more to come. The basil continues to produce big, green leaves I pick for sandwiches and to make pesto.

Fritillary butterfly (RE Berg-Anderson)

Hummingbirds have been visiting the canna flowers in the front yard and the feeder in the back. At this time of year the females need energy to find insects to feed their young. Soon the young will need energy to hunt and may follow their mothers (the fathers will have left long before) to the feeder. The birds started coming later in July than usual but now they are more frequent visitors.

The house wrens are long gone. They and other birds will be heading south soon, if they haven't already started. Those passing through won't be as gaily colored and they won't be singing territorial songs but knowing they're out there might be just enough for me to leave the house and reconnect with the outside world, in spite of this pandemic. The birds need to head south to reach their wintering areas and what we're going through will not affect nor deter them. Those not flying as far south will be stopping (or staying) in my yard when I put the seed feeders back out after Labor Day, less than a month from now.

Monarch butterfly (RE Berg-Anderson)

Butterflies will be heading south, too. I have noticed more tiger swallowtails on the purple flowers of the butterfly bush and some of the smaller butterflies such as the fritillarys. I am waiting for the first monarch butterfly to come.

The days will get even shorter, and there will come a time all too soon when it will be dark before 5 p.m. The inevitability of that depresses me. August is my late mother's birth month and the month her mother as well as one of my good friends died. It adds to the sadness of the period, much as I try to enjoy the flowers, birds and butterflies.

I expect I'll get out of this funk eventually, as I do every year. This year it might take a little longer.

Incidental (Bird) Music

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.
               --Ram Dass

In an average day, we are bombarded with a lot of noise, even in this time of coronavirus. As I work from home this summer I have a fan on and the windows closed, not just to keep the hot and humid air out and move the drier, slightly cooler air around, but to keep out the annoying noise from lawn service mowers, edgers and blowers; the roar of airplanes; the screams of children. I will likely have the radio on, too, hoping the classical music will counteract whatever stress remote work is inducing. Downstairs, MH will have the television on, scanning the news channels.

Sitting on my mother-in-law's deck, I could hear a common loon
calling from some distance away. Note the great blue heron
towards the center of this picture. (Margo D. Beller)

Unfortunately, this noise blocking also keeps out something I wouldn't mind hearing more of, the birdsong.

This is why I go out early in the morning to my porch where, despite needing a fan when it is particularly humid, I can hear birds as they go about their business. But the dawn chorus, when I can rouse myself to go out to hear it, is not as frenetic as before because the birds have long ago chosen their territories, built their nests and raised their young. If I'm lucky, I'll hear the chatter of young birds chasing after their parents and begging for food, or see a hummingbird come to the feeder for the energy she'll need to hunt insects and bring them back to her feed her young.

I call this incidental birding.

We traveled recently, to get away from the headlines and visit family in New England. Along the way I was amazed how many birds I heard from the car when we were driving the back roads. This should not have surprised me. Many years before, on a busy main street in Chicago, I heard something, crossed the street and found a goldfinch atop the traffic light. How had I heard this? Simple - I had trained myself to listen and listen hard because more times than not I have to use my ears rather than my eyes when I am out in the field once the trees leaf out.

This was one of the easier paths we followed, to a
marsh. We heard lots of birds along it. (Margo D. Beller)

So on our New Hampshire trip, with really working that hard at it, I heard many of the warblers that had passed through my neighborhood months before on their way to their breeding areas here: black and white, prairie, Blackburnian, to name a few. In a way this is more interesting birding than going out with the intent of finding birds because of the element of surprise. "What was that?" I think as I hear a snippet of bird call. "Was that what I thought it was?" One such snippet rattled around in my brain until I realized I'd heard a common loon. I'd like to think I am correct in my guessing because I have been listening - really listening - to birds for a long time.

Too often we are caught up in our own little worlds, especially now when, if the heat and humidity and hurricanes don't keep you inside, the fear of being infected with a virus does. Even before we'd ever heard of COVID-19 people have created their own soundscape by blaring their car radios or traveling with earbuds. blocking the outside world. After decades of putting up with cell phone conversations and the screeching of commuter trains and subways, it is a blessing for me to hear as little as possible for as long as I can.

When I sit on my porch - before the lawn services and the office Zoom meetings - and hear something - a robin, say, or downy woodpecker - I consider myself lucky. I sit with my coffee and enjoy the silence of the early morning, punctuated with the occasional chipping sparrow, flicker or catbird. I don't need "mindfulness" or other types of meditation, I just listen to what is or isn't going on around me. A hummingbird is a revelation. A catbird is a prayer. A cardinal is the world telling me it hasn't all gone to hell.

In short, it's my way of coping.