When Plants Fight Back...

We chose the afternoon to stage our offensive. Like the Germans in Russia in 1943, I did not dress properly for the conditions. I should have worn a long-sleeve shirt and long pants. I did not expect so much resistance from the dogwoods.

 

(before...)

I attacked using a hedge trimmer, the best D.I. had to offer. The machine is usually up to the challenge. But the dogwoods grew from last year...they were stronger...they were prepared (or so they thought). I rushed the dogwoods, chopping here and there. At first I gained ground, but the thick branches of the dogwoods began to take their toll. Soon, I was fading...

 

(after...)

After the front side was done, I moved on the dogwoods rear flank. Here the plants put up a stronger fight, but I held the higher ground and eventually I wore them down, but not without paying a price. As the twigs fell, they scratched and clawed as a last-ditch effort to try and stop me. 

After attacking on each side, I had to put down the hedge trimmer and grabbed the loppers. It was a slow fight but I cut and cut and eventually cleared the upper levels of the plants. The children gathered the fallen twigs--once living, but now lifeless--and we stacked them on the road. They will be picked up soon erasing all memory of their existence. Except those of us who fought the fight--we will not forget.

(what the pile felt like to me...)

(the pile's actual size...)

As the blazing red sunset fires in the western sky, the hedge trimmer is put away and the loppers hang in the garage, each waiting the day when they will be called upon again in an never-ending battle of man vs. plant. Today, as the daffodils silently watched, I won a small battle, but the war rages on...