Reflections on the Fifth Week of Spring – Sunny Spring Weeding
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| Strawberry Plant |
Wanting
a practical activity
to celebrate
Earth Day, I
interrupted
my husband’s search for his work gloves.
“Would weeding strawberries be appropriate
today?”
Before
replacing the pillow he’d lifted off the sofa, Spence
blurted, “Ohgodyes.”
He bent
and scooped
the gloves from under the sofa then
left to load the
chainsaw
into
his pickup. He planned to cut firewood from a neighbor’s
trees that
blew down
in a January tornado.
I
don’t usually garden when he’s away―too
many questions go unanswered. But weeding strawberries didn’t
trigger many questions.
Dig out everything except the strawberry plants, let garter snakes
slither away, and avoid ticks. Easy.
Easy. Not so easy.
After
spending part of April
11 at a
health care center so a nurse, with evil looking tweezers, could dig
half a tick from
the back of
my right
ear, I’d
sprayed generous amounts of tick spray before
planting
pansies on April
18. That sort of worked. But
I hadn’t sprayed my face. After
planting, I
discovered a
tick had crawled up my nose when
I sneezed the
pest into a
handkerchief.
Before
heading to the strawberry
bed
on Earth Day,
I
sprayed tick repellent over every square inch of my clothes including
the
garden
hat, work gloves, and knee pads. I
grabbed
a trowel and dandelion digger then
marched to the garden.
April-green grass, tiny
leaves
on apple
trees,
and
catkins turning the golden willows gold tempted
me to fetch my camera. I resisted and focused
my eyes on
the ground to avoid
stepping on
the
violets,
spring beauties,
and
corn speedwell growing
in
the grass.
At
the far end of the four by forty-five foot strawberry bed, I knelt,
averted
my eyes from
spring’s
delights,
and thrust the trowel into the soil. Scrunch.
Fragrance
of moist
soil and earthworms
rose
from the garden.
And
Spence’s
pickup rumbled down the road. The sound and fragrance triggered
the memory of a
day last spring when Spence and I weeded strawberries together.
[See “Strawberry Surprise” April 1, 2018] Hooves
had
hammered
the road, a truck engine roared, and a man yelled. Then
a high stepping Morgan horse raced past followed by a pickup with
Amish man waving his straw hat from
the tailgate.
Would
I see a high-stepping Morgan this
spring?
When
Spence’s pickup passed the garden, he honked.
Lifting
my arm, I twisted my wrist to
rock my
hand in a Queen Elizabeth wave.
Dust
rose
behind the
truck’s
tailgate.
I
pulled a
clump of bitter cress and,
creating my own dust, shook the soil from its roots. Then
I tossed
the weed
onto the garden path to
wither in the sun.
Weed
by weed, I
worked toward
the house. A lawn mower brummed,
an airplane roared,
and a robin sang cheer
up, cheerily.
Three
water breaks and
four hours later,
I heard Clip
. . . clop
. . . clip
. . . clop.
Not
the runaway Morgan. Two
women on
quarter horses [
https://www.britannica.com/animal/American-Quarter-Horse
]
strolled
past. One rider exercised her thumbs on a cell phone. The other
looked at
me and shouted, “Hi!”
I
waved, and
the fingers
in my right hand curled
into a you’re-done-for-the-day cramp.
I’d left a
trail of uprooted
thistles,
dandelions, and bitter cress in
the garden
path
plus
a hundred square feet of weed-free soil with greening strawberry
plants. The other eighty-square feet would have to wait.
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| Strawberry Bed -- Old Section |
I
carried
the trowel and digger to the porch then
scanned my
clothes. No
ticks.
Stepping
inside, I
pulled off my sweatshirt,
hung it
on a kitchen
chair,
and washed
my hands at the sink.
Tuesday
morning, Spence, who’d sprayed
tick repellent before
he logged and
showered
after his
logging,
found a tick on his upper left thigh. Had the tick survived the
shower? Had a
tick hidden
in my sweatshirt and crawled to Spence during the night?
After
an hour of smothering the tick with a glob of Vaseline, Spence lifted
his leg to the bathroom
sink, wobbled, and clutched the corner of the shower for support.
Six
inches from his cute green boxers, I found the tick half in, half our
of a
red spot. With normal tweezers, I squeezed the tick and
tug-tug-tugged
to pull it
out.
Did
I want to chance getting my fifth tick in two
years while weeding the rest of the strawberry patch? Pouring rain
Tuesday let me postpone
that
decision.
On
sunny Wednesday, Spence
drove off to Cleveland for
his campaign
against lead
poisoning. I
peered out the sliding glass door. Dew
glistened in the greening garden.
Spring’s
enticements lured me outside again.
On
the porch, I
saturated
every square
millimeter of my clothing with tick spray. When I set the spray
bottle on the porch desk and turned to walk to the strawberry patch,
I slipped in a
puddle of tick repellent
on the cement floor. I grabbed the desk with one hand and Spence’s
workbench with the other―saving
my
bottom from
hitting the
hard wet cement.
And,
no tick would dare crawl on me.
Slow
stepping
in slippery shoes,
I carried
my
weeding
tools
to the garden and dug.
When
a
weed
entangled itself
with
a
strawberry,
I dug the
pair together,
shook the soil off,
and disentangled their
roots.
I tossed the weed onto
the garden path and transplanted the strawberry in a weed-free spot.
Weed
by weed I
moved toward the house.
Determined
to finish the
strawberry patch
so I didn’t need to endanger myself from slipping in spray puddles
Thursday, I kept my eyes on the garden. That
didn’t prevent me from listening.
Deer
Creek babbled,
a morning dove cooed, and a cardinal sang birdie,
birdie, birdie.
Wind chimes
clanged,
spring peepers peeped,
and bullfrogs croaked.
Weeding
or moving
my hands while listening to a concert? Whichever, four hours and two
water breaks later, I dug the last weed, at
least for that
moment,
then
carried the trowel and digger to the porch.
I
took off my outer clothing one piece at a time―hat,
first
glove, second
glove, first
knee pad, second
knee pad, sweatshirt―and
shook each one vigorously before studying it
for a tiny
black speck
with legs.
With my fingers, I combed through my hair and felt the back of my
neck. Finally,
I brushed my shoes, jeans, and turtleneck with the palms of my hands.
No ticks.
But
I didn’t take a
change on a tick
hiding like
the one that dug
into Spence.
Thursday
morning, within
the twenty-four hours
before a
tick
could give
me Lyme disease, I
submerged myself
in
the YMCA pool. Even
if a tick could survive a shower, no
tick could
survive a
three-quarter
mile
swim.
And
maybe
the
next time
I venture into the garden, ticks
will develop bite fatigue and
sleep under the ground cover.
Unlikely, but I can saturate myself with tick spray and hope.
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| New Apple Leaves, Crepuscular Rays, and Strawberry Bed |
