I Haven’t Posted In a While; I’ve Been Dead Heading the Nut Sedge

Alternate Title: I’m Kinda New Here Myself

   When the anarchists came last week, we had to uncover the bridge. The bridge skips the branch that we rerouted. It used to go under the house where the anarchists were having their street medic training; now it wraps around the front of the house, then goes through a rhododendron patch, under the highway and into Spring Creek.

   We found Japanese knotweed growing out of the bridge about a year ago. Just one little sprout at first, lookin’ kinda different, kinda out of place. Then there  was another, and another, and we recognized it as Japanese knotweed. The next week there  was a veritable forest of it.

   This year we decided to be decisive, to not screw around. We spread old pieces of landscape fabric and shade cloth all around the bridge area. Anywhere we saw knotweed sprouting, we covered with a few layers of something thick. That was in March. We saw neither hide nor hair of it all summer and thought we had gotten the best of it. Then the anarchists came. They moved all the shade cloth and et cetera so they could easily get across the bridge, and neglected to replace it.

   Five days.

   Five days later the Japanese knotweed was sprouting again.

   There has never been kudzu on the farm. There is a healthy patch along the road about a half mile down the creek, and I’ve always thought it was just a matter of time before it got here. So far so good.

   The nut sedge came the year before last. Don’t ask me how. I don’t know. Bird poop? Wind? Mud wedged into boot tread? Tire tread? Is it but a decree from the Fates and the Furies and I am a fool to wonder why? Anyway, it’s here. And flowering.

   I was all cocky at first. I just knew I could weed eat anything that came along, keep it from going to seed, and score a victory against nut sedge. Yes. I would eliminate nut sedge from the farm. Vanquish nut sedge. That’s what I would do.

   Pretty easy. You see it flowering, you dead head it. You weed eat it down to the ground. You let those little nylon strings dig down and flail the roots into oblivion. You move on.

   The nut sedge beat me. It’s everywhere.

   Don’t get me started on the rose brier.