Weed wars

Life at Green Acres is filled with many simple pleasures: things like living next door to my best friend; long walks with the dogs; tapioca made with goat milk and duck eggs; evening strolls with the goats; ducks who boldly join the goat walk as we pass the pond, delighted to return to the security of the quack shack in return for an evening treat of meal worms; baby goats; a broody “mama” hen who contentedly tucks day old foster chicks under her wings, and then watches over them and defends them tirelessly until they are old enough to be safe in the yard on their own; tomatoes warm from our garden, served with freshly picked basil and homemade goat cheese; cross country skiing in January;  frog song filled nights in March; fields and forests alight with fireflies at dusk in July! 

But along with those simple pleasures comes a lot of hard work, some if which is definitively less than pleasant, things like mucking out goat, chicken and duck living quarters, wrestling 150+ pound goats to get hooves trimmed and working for hours in the hot sun in a bee suit.  But of all the tasks to be done at Green Acres, the one I truly dislike and avoid as long as possible is weeding.  I know some people enjoy it, taking satisfaction from seeing the end result. I am not one of them.  It has been a hot summer, with ample rain and the weeds are thriving.  This week I could no longer deny that the garden desperately needed attention. Yesterday was the day I committed to tackling the task.  Temperatures were in the low 80s, (which, although hot, was relatively cool for this summer), there was cloud cover for much of the day, the ground was wet, (helped along by a brief midday downpour) making the weeds easier to pull, and I had my trusty netted hat, so I wouldn’t be eaten alive by the hordes of mosquitoes in the garden while I worked.  What more could one ask for?  I pulled a lot of weeds, enough to fill both of our compost bins to overflowing and covered myself in mud in the process. 

But, after hours spent at the task, my two main thoughts, looking out over the garden were: 1) there were still an awful lot of weeds out there, and 2) with quickweed being true to its name, in 3-4 days it is very possible you won’t be able to tell that I had done any weeding at all!  Yup, like I told you, it just doesn’t leave me with that satisfied feeling! If you enjoy weeding, come on over.  There is plenty to do! I may or may not be available to join you. Tell me that there is bee work to be done, and I will pick a bee suit in the hot sun over weeding every time!