Poison Weed
My dad made an interesting comment the other day....he said that he knows a lot, perhaps too much, about my lawn and garden. Since I write about these two things a lot in my blog, and he reads my blog, he is going to hear a lot about my lawn and garden. Kind of like if you lay out in the sun too long on a summer day without protection, you are going to get sunburned. But, yardwork and gardening are the primary ways I relate to the more physical nature of life.
I am not mechanically-inclined (but declined) and don't play a musical instrument. So, the yard and the garden become rich fodder for observations about life in general. I have to wonder if our inability to follow the Gospel is somewhat because we are so detached from the cycles of life and growth in the realm of agriculture. Farmers are spiritual people...you have to be. You can only do so much when you farm to get good crops; other things, like rain, are out of your control.
I know that with modern agriculture, even some of the risks of farming like no water, pests, weeds, etc...have been minimized by the agribusiness model. However, the food that is produced is nutritionally compromised, herbicided and pesticided, Wal-Martized, and is brought to you by oppressed workers both in this country and elsewhere. Illegal immigration would not exist if businesses did not lust after low-wage hard-working men, women, and children. Their undocumentation makes them prey. Plus, Americans don't want to do back-breaking work...we'd rather hire it out and gorge ourselves on the output. God, James says, hears the workers' cries and will recompense.
In the yard, my primary foe is a type of weed that gives me a nasty rash; in my garden, the mother of all predators, the groundhog, is my foe. Both are equivalent--one is the plant representative of adversity to me and my yard, the other is the animal ambassador of adversity to the garden and I.
I fear that the groundhogs have been laying low, like malevolent invaders from outer space, until the time is right...where their attack will cause the most damage to my garden and the most food for them. There was some early spottings this year, UGO (Unidentified Groundhog Objects), but since my neighbor snipered one of them with his 22 rifle, and the others perhaps have smelled the remains on the one that we assassinated in the garden last year after I caught it in the box trap (not sure of the technical name), there has been no consistent sign of them.
My neighbor with the 22, who is an avid hunter and avid hater of groundhogs (they shimmy up his birdfeeders and help themselves), says that when animals are killed, they leave a sent for others of their kind...sort of a warning. Then after they are shot at close range, they leave a lot of the rest of them around too. That makes sense because the last time I saw a groundhog in the garden this spring, he was just hanging out. Then, he took off like a shot with fear in its beady eyes. He was approximately around where his kin had gotten rubbed out.
Since the groundhogs are perhaps devouring someone else's greener pastures, my new campaign has been to rid the yard of weeds. I am doing hand-to-hand combat. I don't know the name of the weed that causes my rashes, but it is long and leafy with prickly-ness. A couple of weeks ago I dressed up like a Haz-Mat worker (I think I have used that line before, sorry Dad, for the lack of freshness), and I still got a rash that went from my hand, to my arm, to up around my eyes over a progression of at least two weeks. I was in Minneapolis and had it on my arm one week, and the next week I was in Washington D.C. with it around my eye (fortunately, not in my eye...boy that would have sucked). The only thing that works on the rash is cortisone and it is not supposed to be around or in the eye. So, it was a tricky process.
I know that it would be easier to just kill the weeds with Round-Up (or however it is spelled)...the weed-killing death spray from Monsanto. It even gives me a real thrill to watch my weed nemesis turn brown and die over a couple of days. But, I think...man, if it kills these weeds that can survive without water (they are the last to die in my yard), what does this do to people? Just because the label says that it is safe to use doesn't mean squat. I see a lot of people around who use weed-killer and get treatments from lawn companies on their yards that create a green sheen but I have to ask, "at what cost?" Generally, anything that can kill a weed or a rodent, cannot be good for humans. And, if your kids are out rolling around in the yard, it just can't be healthy. It is kind of like using poison to kill roaches, the creatures that even nuclear bomb radiation won't kill. Put enough of it is your house, and you are sure to suffer at some point down the road. Better to keep a clean house and not leave crap around for them to subsist on. Or, find a cat that likes to eat roaches.
Sometimes, I wonder if it would be better to just let the weeds grow and not mount a counter-offensive, unless they are demonstrably causing a problem but choking a healthy plant (I do have some weeds in my garden but use the weed-blocking mesh sheet that let water in but block the sunlight from the germinating weed seeds below...it has really worked well). I treat the front part of my yard (the part visible from the street), with Scott's # 1 once a year. I don't do the other three cycles. For the most part, the grass is fine for the rest of the year and I don't toxify my land.
I guess the theological application of all of this is as follows:
- Decide the battles that need to be fought and why. Is looking good, having a green lawn, really worth the costs and dangers? Looking good in general, while what lies below the surface is nasty, is a common malady. Go in debt to show that you can hang with the neighbors? Stupid! I don't try to compete with my lawn god neighbors. It is not that important to me. But, I try to keep things looking appropriate without assuming the dangers of doing to my yard what Michael Jackson did to his face.
- Killing groundhogs is appropriate. Sometimes, creatures (like terrorists) have to be killed. We should not do it with glee and relish. Bush's "Bring 'em on rhetoric" was idiotic and unworthy of a President (he, to his credit, now admits this but the damage has been done). Whatever happened to Teddy Roosevelt's "Walk softly but carry a big stick" approach? T.R. was a pretty brash man...for him to say this, means that it is a truism worthy of emulation.
However, we have to examine seriously the conditions that have created such sociopathic and psychopathic people and do what we can to clean up our messes that they feed on. For too many years, the U.S. has supported oppressive regimes because it has given us cut-rates on the raw materials and labor that our lifestyle (deathstyle?) demands. Nuts like Hugo Chavez have a lot of American abuses to work with and there is no sense in trying to dismiss the charges. We are guilty as sin.
- Make sure the proposed cure is not worse than the problem. Using poison to kill is an unethical approach. The stimulus package, for example, is more poison rather than a treatment of the underlying problems that got the U.S. economy in the mess in the first place. When I read that the Federal government is paying close to $ 400 apiece for the signs that essentially state "This is the stimulus money at work" around the sites where the money is being applied, I know that the fix is in and the grafters have taken over. The signs are being bought at hyper-inflated price and those who handle the money--the bureaucrats, the procurement industries, and the politicians, are all getting their share of paper.
- Prevention, as a rule, is much better than treatment. Don't get a rash to start with. I have to keep thinking about how to pull these weeds without getting exposed. My approach needs some work. I do think that I am unusually vulnerable to this weed. I am not allergic to anything but I think that this weed may be one thing that I have a serious reaction to.
With all of the talk about Health Care reform, there is one huge issue, an obese elephant in the room, that no one wants to talk about. Obesity is the first cause of American health woes. Preachers who rail against abortion, gay marriage, porn, Demoncrats, and the like, will never take on gluttony--probably because they are obese. It is the third rail of the evangelical world. How is it that we are so blind to the effects of obesity in issues like cancer and heart disease?...I mean, I think we know a lot of it but show little interest in eating more sensibly. We need to learn to push away from the table after seconds. I know a Physical Therapist who said that obese clients who get injured, are the hardest to rehab. They may have injured themselves by being too heavy (it causes a lot of stress on the muscles, joints, tendons, and ligaments, to be obese) and then to get them active when injured is akin to rolling a boulder up a mountain. If they are old on top of being fat, sedentary, and injured, then disability and death...often over a costly amount of time...happens.
To be continued....
I am not mechanically-inclined (but declined) and don't play a musical instrument. So, the yard and the garden become rich fodder for observations about life in general. I have to wonder if our inability to follow the Gospel is somewhat because we are so detached from the cycles of life and growth in the realm of agriculture. Farmers are spiritual people...you have to be. You can only do so much when you farm to get good crops; other things, like rain, are out of your control.
I know that with modern agriculture, even some of the risks of farming like no water, pests, weeds, etc...have been minimized by the agribusiness model. However, the food that is produced is nutritionally compromised, herbicided and pesticided, Wal-Martized, and is brought to you by oppressed workers both in this country and elsewhere. Illegal immigration would not exist if businesses did not lust after low-wage hard-working men, women, and children. Their undocumentation makes them prey. Plus, Americans don't want to do back-breaking work...we'd rather hire it out and gorge ourselves on the output. God, James says, hears the workers' cries and will recompense.
In the yard, my primary foe is a type of weed that gives me a nasty rash; in my garden, the mother of all predators, the groundhog, is my foe. Both are equivalent--one is the plant representative of adversity to me and my yard, the other is the animal ambassador of adversity to the garden and I.
I fear that the groundhogs have been laying low, like malevolent invaders from outer space, until the time is right...where their attack will cause the most damage to my garden and the most food for them. There was some early spottings this year, UGO (Unidentified Groundhog Objects), but since my neighbor snipered one of them with his 22 rifle, and the others perhaps have smelled the remains on the one that we assassinated in the garden last year after I caught it in the box trap (not sure of the technical name), there has been no consistent sign of them.
My neighbor with the 22, who is an avid hunter and avid hater of groundhogs (they shimmy up his birdfeeders and help themselves), says that when animals are killed, they leave a sent for others of their kind...sort of a warning. Then after they are shot at close range, they leave a lot of the rest of them around too. That makes sense because the last time I saw a groundhog in the garden this spring, he was just hanging out. Then, he took off like a shot with fear in its beady eyes. He was approximately around where his kin had gotten rubbed out.
Since the groundhogs are perhaps devouring someone else's greener pastures, my new campaign has been to rid the yard of weeds. I am doing hand-to-hand combat. I don't know the name of the weed that causes my rashes, but it is long and leafy with prickly-ness. A couple of weeks ago I dressed up like a Haz-Mat worker (I think I have used that line before, sorry Dad, for the lack of freshness), and I still got a rash that went from my hand, to my arm, to up around my eyes over a progression of at least two weeks. I was in Minneapolis and had it on my arm one week, and the next week I was in Washington D.C. with it around my eye (fortunately, not in my eye...boy that would have sucked). The only thing that works on the rash is cortisone and it is not supposed to be around or in the eye. So, it was a tricky process.
I know that it would be easier to just kill the weeds with Round-Up (or however it is spelled)...the weed-killing death spray from Monsanto. It even gives me a real thrill to watch my weed nemesis turn brown and die over a couple of days. But, I think...man, if it kills these weeds that can survive without water (they are the last to die in my yard), what does this do to people? Just because the label says that it is safe to use doesn't mean squat. I see a lot of people around who use weed-killer and get treatments from lawn companies on their yards that create a green sheen but I have to ask, "at what cost?" Generally, anything that can kill a weed or a rodent, cannot be good for humans. And, if your kids are out rolling around in the yard, it just can't be healthy. It is kind of like using poison to kill roaches, the creatures that even nuclear bomb radiation won't kill. Put enough of it is your house, and you are sure to suffer at some point down the road. Better to keep a clean house and not leave crap around for them to subsist on. Or, find a cat that likes to eat roaches.
Sometimes, I wonder if it would be better to just let the weeds grow and not mount a counter-offensive, unless they are demonstrably causing a problem but choking a healthy plant (I do have some weeds in my garden but use the weed-blocking mesh sheet that let water in but block the sunlight from the germinating weed seeds below...it has really worked well). I treat the front part of my yard (the part visible from the street), with Scott's # 1 once a year. I don't do the other three cycles. For the most part, the grass is fine for the rest of the year and I don't toxify my land.
I guess the theological application of all of this is as follows:
- Decide the battles that need to be fought and why. Is looking good, having a green lawn, really worth the costs and dangers? Looking good in general, while what lies below the surface is nasty, is a common malady. Go in debt to show that you can hang with the neighbors? Stupid! I don't try to compete with my lawn god neighbors. It is not that important to me. But, I try to keep things looking appropriate without assuming the dangers of doing to my yard what Michael Jackson did to his face.
- Killing groundhogs is appropriate. Sometimes, creatures (like terrorists) have to be killed. We should not do it with glee and relish. Bush's "Bring 'em on rhetoric" was idiotic and unworthy of a President (he, to his credit, now admits this but the damage has been done). Whatever happened to Teddy Roosevelt's "Walk softly but carry a big stick" approach? T.R. was a pretty brash man...for him to say this, means that it is a truism worthy of emulation.
However, we have to examine seriously the conditions that have created such sociopathic and psychopathic people and do what we can to clean up our messes that they feed on. For too many years, the U.S. has supported oppressive regimes because it has given us cut-rates on the raw materials and labor that our lifestyle (deathstyle?) demands. Nuts like Hugo Chavez have a lot of American abuses to work with and there is no sense in trying to dismiss the charges. We are guilty as sin.
- Make sure the proposed cure is not worse than the problem. Using poison to kill is an unethical approach. The stimulus package, for example, is more poison rather than a treatment of the underlying problems that got the U.S. economy in the mess in the first place. When I read that the Federal government is paying close to $ 400 apiece for the signs that essentially state "This is the stimulus money at work" around the sites where the money is being applied, I know that the fix is in and the grafters have taken over. The signs are being bought at hyper-inflated price and those who handle the money--the bureaucrats, the procurement industries, and the politicians, are all getting their share of paper.
- Prevention, as a rule, is much better than treatment. Don't get a rash to start with. I have to keep thinking about how to pull these weeds without getting exposed. My approach needs some work. I do think that I am unusually vulnerable to this weed. I am not allergic to anything but I think that this weed may be one thing that I have a serious reaction to.
With all of the talk about Health Care reform, there is one huge issue, an obese elephant in the room, that no one wants to talk about. Obesity is the first cause of American health woes. Preachers who rail against abortion, gay marriage, porn, Demoncrats, and the like, will never take on gluttony--probably because they are obese. It is the third rail of the evangelical world. How is it that we are so blind to the effects of obesity in issues like cancer and heart disease?...I mean, I think we know a lot of it but show little interest in eating more sensibly. We need to learn to push away from the table after seconds. I know a Physical Therapist who said that obese clients who get injured, are the hardest to rehab. They may have injured themselves by being too heavy (it causes a lot of stress on the muscles, joints, tendons, and ligaments, to be obese) and then to get them active when injured is akin to rolling a boulder up a mountain. If they are old on top of being fat, sedentary, and injured, then disability and death...often over a costly amount of time...happens.
To be continued....
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