An Exercise in Futility

Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.

--Simone de Beauvoir

The author of "The Second Sex" was not a gardener. If she was she would've said "weeding" instead of housework.

I, however, am a gardener. With a three-day holiday weekend all but assuring me of lots of people on the trails I walk to listen for birds, I took one of those days to bring my pail, bench and spade to the ornamental grass garden to get at the weeds that have run rampant thanks to heat, rain and lack of attention from me.

An assortment of weeds including milkweed, wild strawberry, 
ground ivy, oxalis and others I can't identify.
(Margo D. Beller)

Weeding is the last thing I want to do on a hot summer morning, but this holiday weekend was blessedly less humid and a tad cooler, allowing me to gird myself for battle. And battle I did.

I can identify many, but far from all, of the weeds I was pulling. There are strawberry vines, a clover-like plant called oxalis, my old nemesis the ground ivy, wild violets, dandelions. There is also lawn grass that has gone feral and moved into the plant area. 

On another cool morning I had spent several hours pulling oxalis that had grown so tall it was obscuring the plants in the sunny front plots. This time, however, the oxalis was more spread out, in some areas almost like a vine, somehow growing behind the tall ornamental grasses in much less sun.

Milkweed has shown up in this area, but because it doesn't get much sun it hasn't grown the flowers that benefit monarch butterflies. But the plant spreads through underground runners, so pulling up what is above the ground doesn't stop what is below.

The sharp blades of ornamental grass.
(Margo D. Beller)

I have to tip my hat to weeds and their methods of survival. Oxalis and the other weeds I was pulling from behind and beneath the ornamental grasses get only a small bit of sun, usually in the early morning and late afternoon, but it is enough for them. With a spade oxalis comes up easily but it is also fragile and will break. You grab a handful, pull it out, then see you left some behind. Even if you get these there may be more under the soil surface.

Some of the weeds I pulled were growing next to stones, which makes the plants hard to get with the spade. They also grow next to plants I don't want to uproot, which means I have to be careful with the spade not to take out a lily of the valley, for instance.

If the weed has a taproot, like the dandelion, I can dig down but rarely pull up the entire root. Usually some is left behind, assuring more to come later. One of the weeds I can't identify could grow into a small tree if left alone, so I try to pull it out or at least take off the foliage to slow the growth.

Ornamental grass (right) and prickly yew (Margo D. Beller)

In this particular plot, there is no netting. That is because I put in plants deer don't tend to browse, in this case three large ornamental grasses that grow after the daffodils are finished and shelter some smaller plants including a bleeding heart. So the weeds grow among the grasses and get wonderful protection. I have to be careful not to get cut by the knife-like blades as I move next to and beneath the grasses.

Also, there is a yew - taxonomy unknown - that sprang up from someplace else, filling a space when several scotch broom shrubs died from the effects of too much snow and too much cold wind one winter. Deer don't eat this yew, unlike the yew hedge nearby, because the leaves of this particular yew are prickly and have a strong scent. I can tell you these leaves scratch as much as the grasses.

Perhaps the greatest protection the weeds have is their sheer number. Eventually, they wear me down. I fill two loads in my large pink pail for the compost pile, and then I look at what is left and feel despair. 

I try to comfort myself by thinking, well, I heard lots of nice birds - house wren, catbird, chipping sparrow - and spent time outdoors in nice weather. I tell myself that at least I made a dent in the weeds - though deep down I know that by disturbing the soil I have created space for more of them to later take root.

And in the end, it's all compost. (Margo D. Beller)

It is only later I feel the mental and physical exhaustion and find the bites from insects that didn't like having their homes uprooted.

Gone Again

Once again a house wren brood has fledged and once again I managed to miss it.

As was the case with the first brood back in June, the young started getting antsy. One chick again stayed close to the nest box opening to intercept a parent bearing food. This chick at one point leaned so far out of the box the parent pushed it back inside. But the chick kept looking out, watching for food but also, to me, curious about the world outside the box.

Yesterday, I had my binoculars on the box when a parent came with food, shoved the one chick out of the way and allowed me to see the open mouth of its sibling. The parent fed that chick, checked for poop and left.

Empty nest, July 27, 2024
(Margo D. Beller)

I told myself I should get my camera, sensing things were about to change. As usual, I just sat there.

Later in the day, back from various Saturday errands, I took advantage of the less-humid weather to do some very necessary weeding, including clearing out crabgrass from between paving stones and pulling out ragweed before it could develop pollen that would make me sneeze more than I already do.

One of those areas was at the other end of the yard where ornamental grasses and other plants deer generally avoid are in an unnetted plot. Behind me I heard house wrens. They later flew to a shrubby area just beyond my compost pile, the same area where the first brood hid after fledging. Later, I rested on my porch and saw no activity at the nest box.

Unlike in past years, however, I do not feel sad at seeing the empty nest. I did what I intended, which was to help maintain the house wren population, even though house wrens are far from endangered. This year a pair had one chick and then a second (or the same?) pair had two chicks. With any luck the chicks will grow, fly south to the wintering grounds in Central and South America and then fly north to breed. Big ifs. Life is perilous for all birds, but especially for young birds that somehow know how to migrate without parental help.

I can only hope for the best. The box will be taken down and cleaned out in October, then stowed away for next year.