Gardening Day

Day 198: I don't enjoy weeding. I don't think anyone does (not really), but those of us who garden, however lackadaisically, have convinced ourselves that crawling around on our knees and grubbing in the dirt is somehow fun.

The weeds have been calling to me for the better part of a month now, and weather was largely responsible for keeping me from the task; weather and, as honesty compels me to admit, other outdoor activites when the sun broke through the clouds. Warmer days or not, the ground is cold still, and long roots are reluctant to release their hold on chilly, compacted soil. The aeration team has only just begun to rise and writhe, and by the time their job is nearly done, their numbers will have increased sufficiently that I will have no scruples about inviting a small contingent out to fish for perch. Right now, their labour in the flower beds is far too valuable to sacrifice them to the hook. A few self-seeding annuals are struggling to emerge through the shield of moss which invariably spreads over the soil during the idle season, and inevitably, I pull a few things I didn't mean to pull in the process of scraping down to dirt.

Today was a preliminary attack on my foes, the weeds. I took out their generals and commanders, and reduced the first wave of their army. But it is a battle I am destined to fight again and again, for their recuperative powers are phenomenal. Like the Phoenix of legend, they will rise as vigorously as before. I'll be back out there next week, grubbing in the dirt again, my complaints tempered by some misplaced sense of enjoyment which tells me I like to garden.