Reflections on the Fifth Week of Spring – Sunny Spring Weeding 

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.

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.

New Apple Leaves, Crepuscular Rays, and Strawberry Bed