I’ve been pulling weeds all morning and I had a lot of time to think while doing it. When I was a little girl, I used to spend summers with my grandmother. She had a small farm on the edge of the city limits. It was a typical kind of farm. She had a cow for milk and pigs and chickens to help the menu.

It was fun to watch her milk. I played with the cats while they waited for their warm bowl to drink when grandma was finished. She also had a dog…..old Snuffy. Some kind of a Terrier I guess but she was a nice dog.

Well, grandma raised a garden and she had raspberries and lots of flowers. She sold Peonies at Memorial Day time for decorating the graves. Naturally, on a small place like hers, there were lots of weeds. At certain times of the year she would have a hired man come and mow a lot of them down with a scythe. He was an unusual man, quiet and kind of simple minded.

Grandma always cooked dinner for him because she knew he wouldn’t have anything to eat unless she did. When the noon whistle blew I always came running and Ashly, the hired man, came to the house as well. Dinner was always a time to take a break from morning work and talk over the news and weather.

But to get back to the weed pulling, I remember sitting near wherever grandma was working at pulling her weeds and I thought I would never, ever, do that. It was tiresome and hot work. Grandma was a very small woman and sometimes she would use the big scythe, swinging it back and forth, taking big swaths with each swing. She would take her old straw hat off and wipe her forehead…..I felt sorry for her because she had to work so hard.

I’ve learned a lot since those days. A lot about weeds. I learned that if you love your flowers, the weeds are the enemy. As a little girl it looked like terrible work but as an adult I found it was a good time to think. As I pulled and separated them from my flowers I found they had a survival plan that was pure genius.

They come up right where the flower is and blend in as much as they can. When you are walking by your garden, they are mostly unnoticed because they are so artfully concealed. It is only when you do serious weeding that you see them. They love to twine their roots with those of the flower so if they have to go, the flower does too.

Another thing is that when they are growing in the open in a large clump they have a carefully devised plan to avoid your tugging. They give up a piece here and a piece there but avoid being pulled in total. If they must, they will give up the visible foliage but they know the roots are still in tact. Many a lazy gardener will let it go at that and in a day or two the weed is back. I don’t give up until the root is out and laying in the hot sun. They won’t be around very soon again.

Something you must not do is overlook the little weeds. They look unobtrusive enough but in a day or two they will be choking out your flowers….they can grow without rain, without fertilizer and the hotter and dryer it gets, the better they like it. When your flowers are drooping and gasping their last the weeds are comin’ on strong.

Weeds are a lot like some people. They can blend in and hang around until they choke the life right out of someone else. It doesn’t matter how precious or beautiful, useful or prized other plants are, weeds like to “take over.” I’ve known folks like that who just move in on a good plan and take over before the culprits can be weeded out.

I weed because my mother and grandmother before me, weeded. I learned a lot from them about other things too. I try to keep the weeds out of my life and make sure the blooms in my soul are well tended. There is a Gardener who watches over me……..and I know He watches over you too…………

Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther