The Minnesota Farm Woman

A. A. Milne’s Eeyore once said, “Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.”  Could someone please explain to me why I plant an entire row of beets and an entire row of weeds emerges?  Why the carrots are tiny little smidgens of green in the garden while the weeds have managed to grow four inches overnight and are overtaking them as we speak?  I am in the midst of my annual war on weeds. Me against them. Farm Woman vs. “flowers”. Since I garden organically, there are no sprays or chemicals involved, just my own two hands and a hoe, sore knees and a tired back.  As many of you may know, my husband does not garden. It was written into our marriage vows many years ago.  As a child, he was forced encouraged to work in the family garden daily, and to this day, hates gardening.  I can’t blame him, because I was forced invited along on many family berry-picking excursions and don’t like berry picking, either.  As my annual Mother’s Day gift, he spends several hours tilling until the soil is perfect.  At that point, the garden is mine….all mine.  This year I am trying garden paths and heavy mulch.  The paths are landscaping fabric secured with pegs and corrugated fiberglass roofing, left over from when we tore down the old screen house. The mulch is old straw from the bottomless pit of old straw…..the chicken coop.  It is not a pleasant job.  First, I shovel the stuff into a garbage can, then schlep it over to the wheelbarrow, which I (of course) can’t fit into the coop.  I then push this 500 pound wheelbarrow back to the garden and lay the mulch between the plants and the rows.  I have so far done this about a dozen  times and still have more in the coop and empty rows in the garden. You would think that with all this physical labor, I would weigh about 120 pounds, but not only do I NOT weigh 120 pounds, on warmer days I start to smell like a chicken coop. While I am outside battling weeds, the dust bunnies are inside, reproducing just as bunnies are known to do.  I’ll bet you didn’t know that dirty dishes reproduce even faster than dust bunnies. There is always a pile of them next to the kitchen sink.  I am fighting a losing battle, but I haven’t given up yet. I often tell people to “stop over anytime for coffee”, but I am going to give you one word of advice right now:  Don’t.  Either the dust bunnies will get you or you will be put to hard labor with a sink full of soapy water and a teetering mound of dirty dishes.  I know there are some of you out there who still manage to work full-time and have spotlessly clean homes and weed-free gardens.  Eeyore explained that pretty well, too:  “We can’t all, and some of us don’t. That’s all there is to it.” Thanks, Eeyore.