Dandelions

These lessons are hard-learned.

Today I bought gardening gloves, heavy duty, up to the elbow—when before I've bought just pretty flowers, whatever catches my fancy and Romantic eye, whether or not the conditions in my garden suit their nature. Usually not (they suit nothing, it turns out), and so the only things alive are my lime tree, barely, and weeds. Thriving, mocking, defeating without a fair fight. We're caught in a thicket of monster dandelions, soon big as the house.

My Mother, good dauntless practical Norwegian, says "make dandelion wine." Lemonade from lemons, yes—it's charming to slice and squeeze the yellow citrus fruit. But the ongoing, ordinary work of keeping the garden clear (and all those other things inside and out) that get buried when one is not constantly vigilant) is too much, too little gratifying in the short run, too unpicturesque. Gardening as planting, harvesting, is one thing, and fighting to weed yet another. The philosophy—or religion—of cycles isn't persuasive, when I am up to my eyebrows in overgrown sow thistle.

With me it's all or nothing, now or never. So this month it will be the weeds or me!


image: Christie B. Cochrell, Seeds